Gym Demolition
by Sharkey52
Summary: The gym leaders of Sinnoh meet up for a gym leader meeting. Only Yuzu's missing, Yuya's acting weird and there's a troublesome Goomy on the lose. And Sora baked a cake. Badly. (The Yuboys and Bracelet Girls are gym leaders, the remaining Lancers are the elite four. Reiji's the champion. I promise this is an Arc-V story. You don't need to know Pokémon that well at all to read this)
1. Gym Demolition

To make up for my long absense, here's the Gym Leader AU that no one asked for. It's Generation 7, but set in Sinnoh rather than Alola, because I can remember the names of the places in Sinnoh without having to look them up on Bulbapedia. Here's a short guide to who's who and what gym they run just before we start:

 **Gym Leaders**

• Ruri – Flying types – Oreburgh City

• Serena – Dark types – Eterna City

• Yuya – Dragon types – Veilstone City

• Yugo – Electric types – Pastoria City

• Yuzu – Fairy types – Hearthome City

• Yuto – Ghost types – Canalave City

• Rin – Ice types – Snowpoint City

• Yuri – Poison types – Sunnyshore City

 **Elite Four**

• Sawatari – Bug types

• Gongenzaka – Fighting types

• Kurosaki – Steel types

• Reira – Psychic types

• Reiji

* * *

 **Gym Demolition**

"Can you believe this, Yuya?!"

Yuya largely ignored Yugo teleporting into the room in which he was in. He preoccupied with trying to feed his very stubborn Zweilous, which was much easier said than done.

"Yuya! Hey! Talking to you!" Yugo barked, striding across the room whilst shoving the map from Yuzu that dictated how to safely navigate the warp panels to the gym leader's room into his pocket. "Yuzu's not here! Have you seen her?"

"Well obviously, Yugo" Yuya stated a little too cheerfully considering the twin heads of his Zweilous were attempting to snatch the same chunk of food from each other. "After all, I am inside her gym after all. Did you think I had my own key?"

It wouldn't at all be surprising if Yuya did have a key to Yuzu's gym, in Yugo opinion. It was no secret that whilst Yuya was the Veilstone Gym leader and had been since his father's retirement, he'd been all but living at the Hearthome Gym ever since Yuzu took it over, besides the rare nights the pair spent at the Veilstone Gym. Sora was all but running the Veilstone instalment at the moment and had to call Yuya every time a challenger made it to the gym leader's podium. It was getting somewhat ridiculous. But then again, if Yugo didn't live the entire width of Sinnoh away from Rin, he'd spend as much time as possible at her gym too.

"But the monthly gym leader meeting's about to start and she's not even in her own gym!" Yugo pointed out, his Magnemite doing lazy circles of his head, sparking ominously when Yugo ignored him in favour of the ongoing Yuzu crisis. "Rin's going to be so mad if she'd not here when she turns up! Do you think she's forgotten?"

She couldn't have forgotten. The monthly gym leader meeting was held on the last day of every month, and the gym leaders would trade responsibilities for holding it. Yugo had held it at the Pastoria Gym last month, so it was obviously Yuzu's turn now. Why would she leave the gym if she knew the other gym leaders were turning up? Maybe to get cleaning supplies? But the whole gym was spotless, and none of the gym's trainer seem to know anything about the missing gym leader going on an errand. In fact, all the trainers appeared to be usually shy, and tried to dodge any questions about where Yuzu might have gone or even if they'd seen her that morning.

"What's with you, anyway?" he had to ask "You're really quiet today. Something happen?"

Yuya didn't exactly reply. Just hmmmed as he threw another piece of food into the air for the second Zweilous head to stop the fight between the two heads.

Yugo figured it out a second before his Magenmite, who began beeping in distress as it anxiously retreated towards the warp panel again. Yugo himself turned pale as he pieced together Yuya's unusual attitude, Yuzu's disappearance and the gym trainers' reluctance to talk.

"No, don't tell me. Did you two have a fight ag—"

"I don't have a clue what you're talking about, Yugo" Yuya declared with a smile that was far too insincere to put Yugo at ease as he patted his Zweilous on its twin heads "Now would you like to pet Odd-Eyes here? I promise you, he doesn't bite, unless it's people he doesn't like."

The long beep that Yugo's Magnemite let out could only be described as a plea for mercy.

* * *

"Yuto! Turn the lights on! We needto talk to you!"

Ruri squinted into the darkness of the Canalave Gym, dodging a levitating book that idled across the vertically spacious room. Shun glowered at the book as it turned around and levitated right over his head, looking like it wanted to hit him over the head before it thought better of it, bobbing off into the darkness.

"I can get Raptor out" Shun suggested "Have him drag the guy down here by his stupid hair."

Ruri rolled her eyes and placed a restraining hand on his shoulder, her Talonflame tweeting disapprovingly at him. "Relax, he's going to have to be at the gym leader's meeting soon. He has to leave at some point."

She turned her gaze upward to where she knew Yuto probably was at this second. In the past, the Canalave Gym had been owed by steel type gym leader Dr Faker. When he had retired, it had been expected that his son Kaito would take over the gym. Kaito had dismissed the idea and had taken off to run the Battle Tower over at the Battle Frontier, turning the running of the gym over to a reluctant Yuto. Yuto, as a ghost type user, had decided to keep the original layout of the gym, but turn the lights off and supply torches to potential challengers, as well as allow his Mismagius to levitate some books to fly around the building. It was not a popular decision – enough people found the gym hard to navigate without risking life and limb by falling five stories from the platforms because they couldn't see the edge in the dark, or because they got pegged on the head by a flying book.

Like the one that was harassing Ruri's Talonflame right now.

"YUTO!" Ruri called into the gym. God, this was why she didn't like visiting. With her gym being first on Sinnoh's official journey route, her gym had a simple layout that involved no flying books and Ruri was happy to keep it that way.

Finally, Yuto appeared into the light of the doorway, eyes blinking because he was an idiot who stood in the dark all day. His eternally present Mismagius was snickering over his shoulder and Shun looked like he was seriously debating reaching over and throttling the little troublemaker.

"I thought the meeting was in Hearthome?" Yuto frowned.

"It is" Ruri confirmed "But we stopped by here first."

Yuto glanced down at his Pokétch with a frown. "Er…I'd invite you in, but we've gotta get going, haven't we? It's supposed to start in—"

"We're not coming in" Shun interrupted him, folding his arms over his chest "This is an intervention, Yuto."

Yuto's frown deepened and he looked like he was considering every possible definition of the word 'intervention'.

"It's about your Pokémon" Ruri clarified.

The Mismagius' face fell and it burrowed into Yuto's neck protectively. Yuto placed a hand on its head, glancing between the Kurosaki siblings with a look of disapproval.

"What about them?" he asked, darkly.

The siblings looked between each other, appearing to be daring each other to speak first. Apparently Shun lost, as he sighed moodily and looked Yuto dead in the eye.

"Yuto, they're too overpowered."

Yuto didn't seem to process that at first, staring at Shun like the older boy had a fly on the end of his nose.

"Look, we understand you've had that same line-up since you took over the gym" Ruri explained "But they've been levelling up ever since and…well…"

"They're too strong" Shun finished the sentence bluntly.

Yuto still didn't appear to understand still. "And I'm proud of them for that."

"Yeah, yeah, we know, that's great" Ruri explained "But problem's…well, you—"

"You have a level 47 Mimikyuu" Shun told him.

Apparently the Mismagius caught on, as it started sniggering sinisterly. Shun glared at the Pokémon but that just made it snigger more.

"And…" Yuto was still confused.

"And you can't have Pokémon that strong" Ruri informed him "You're fifth in line, so that people can get your badge without having to travel all the way along Mt Coronet first and then head over to Sunnyshore City on the way to the league. But your Pokémon are even stronger than Rin's and are catching up to Yuri's. Reiji's getting anxious that they're too…overpowered."

"Level. 47. Mimikyuu." Shun stressed the words as if to drill the severity of his point into Yuto's skull.

Yuto still didn't looked impressed, eyes darting between the siblings as if he was silently debating which one to chew out first. Finally, he turned to Shun.

"Says the man who had to be forced by Reiji to 'use variety'" he recalled.

Shun's jaw tensed. He had done his best to forget that one time he'd all but insisted on using a team of six Skarmory in his elite four battles. Yuto seemed to be incapable of forgetting that one particular phase of his life.

"Look" Ruri sighed "If it was us, we wouldn't have said anything. But it's Reiji, and he's the one who makes the rules. He's not saying get rid of your Pokémon, just find some weaker ones for the challengers. I have to do it every couple of weeks, what with how lower-levelled Pokémon level up so quickly."

Yuto seemed slightly placated by Ruri's words, petting his Mismagius on the head gently. "I love them all."

"We do too, buddy" Shun told him, though still wearily eyeing the Mismagius that was sticking its tongue out at him "But we've gotta give the challengers a chance. Yuri's been so bored lately that he caused a chemical spill into the ocean just so that he'd have something to do."

A smirk of amusement spread across Yuto's face at the mention of Yuri's extra-curricular activities. The problem with being the final gym before the league was that challengers had to fight through seven gyms before they got to you. Naturally, Yuri was prone to fits of boredom from time to time and when you mixed a bored poison-type user with a city that was historically used to putting up with the antics of exceptionally bored gym leaders, it wasn't ever going to end well.

"So, maybe consider retiring some of them from gym battles?" Ruri suggested.

Yuto considered the idea with a small nod. "I'll think about it."

Ruri considered that confirmation enough. If Yuto didn't go through with it, then Reiji couldn't complain she and Shun hadn't tried. Then it was his problem.

"Alright then!" she cheered, clapping her hands together "Let's get this show on the road! Ready to go?"

"Uh…yeah" Yuto confirmed, checking his bag and his Pokéballs "Are you coming too, Shun?"

"Yeah, why not" Shun shrugged "Shuin'in's hanging around the league again. Apparently I must solve my disputes with him with words, not by having Raptor drop him into the ocean twenty miles from shore."

If the residents of Canalave City heard laughter ringing from the sky as two gym leaders and an elite four member flew away towards the east, then they at least had the decency not to mention it to Shuin'in.

* * *

"Yuzu and Yuya had a fight! Everyone run for your lives!"

It was early on a Tuesday morning and Serena was barely awake, yawning and stretching as she stumbled into the Hearthome Gym. She'd been up most of the night evolving her Eevee into an Umbreon and had completely forgotten the date, leading to her only getting three hours sleep before having to appear at the monthly gym leader meeting.

The trials of running the only dark-type gym in the known world.

That being said, even if she had been fully awake, she may not have noticed the panicked Magnemite before it crashed into her face.

Yelping with surprise, Serena crashed to ground, narrowly avoiding landing on her Bisharp as she collapsed in a heap of limbs.

"What the hell?!" she yelled as the Magnemite kept flying towards the door, not even fazed by the impact, whirring in what sounded like distress. As she tried to get up, she was knocked down again as this time a human run into her, her Bisharp sounding its disapproval as it shook one of its fists towards the fleeing human.

Rolling over to try and get up again, Serena saw the potential disaster about to occur in the doorway of the gym.

"Rin, look out!" she called out.

Rin paused mid-step, ducking to the side to avoid a fleeing Magnemite before reaching her arm out to grab someone trying to bolt from the gym wearing a Riding Pokémon suit that they'd brought back on a previous trip to Alola. Rin would recognise it anywhere – she'd been there when he bought it.

"Hello Yugo" she said casually as she held the human who had just knocked Serena down in place with one arm "What seems to be the problem?"

Yugo recognised the voice, checked the girl in question to confirm it was who he thought it was, and then grinned with delight. "Rin-Rin!"

Yugo's Magnemite finally seemed to notice its trainer wasn't following it and it ground to a halt, spinning on the spot and hurrying back towards Yugo.

Rin seemed amused by the trail of destruction Yugo had managed to lay out before her, and she was delighted to see him after far too many weeks of video calls only, but there was clearly some reason why he was on the run and she probably wasn't going to like it.

"What the hell, man?!" Serena protested, storming towards the pair with a look of murder in her eyes "Did you not see me or something?!"

Yugo's eyes widened with horror as the previous thirty seconds flashed before his eyes. "Oh my Arceus! I am so sorry! I-I was just trying to run before disaster struck and—"

"What disaster?" Rin cut him off "What did you do?"

"It wasn't me!" Yugo insisted "Yuzu and Yuya had a fight!"

Silence reigned for a good few seconds. Then Yugo's Magnemite started zapping Yugo's shoulder with frustration and Serena's Bisharp began pulling on her trousers with a look of worry.

"Is it too late to get away from Hearthome?" Serena suggested, looking up at the blue skies hanging over Sinnoh's second largest city. They didn't appear all that reassuring, knowing a major disaster on scale with a Groudon-awakening event could be about to take place.

"Maybe we can call the others, postpone the meeting?" Yugo suggested "I mean, Yuto and Ruri are probably travelling together. And I'm sure if we called Yuri he'd answer. We could get everyone else to turn around right now."

"Wait, this is Yuzu's city, right?" Rin pointed out "But I'm not seeing her Togekiss flying around."

The other two peered up at the sky. Sure enough, the white blob that was always soaring across the Hearthome sky was notably absent.

"That means Yuzu's not here, right?" Rin added.

Serena thought about it, and had to acknowledge the point. If that Togekiss was gone, then Yuzu definitely wasn't in the city. That could mean a bunch of things though. It could mean she was cooling off, but it could also mean she was on her way to Stark Mountain to trigger an eruption that would blanket Sinnoh in five feet of ash. That was the hazard of Yuzu and Yuya's relationship – most of the time, they were good for each other; but when they did fight, the results were explosive.

Before Serena could vocalise her thoughts, a shiver went up her spine as she felt something slimy land on her head. Rin and Yugo's eyes widened with horror, confirming her worst fears. Craning her neck back, she glared up at the top of the doorway, glaring up at the Goomy that was perched there, laughing.

"You little pest" she growled with a menacing look in her eyes "Go back to Mummy, or whatever."

Frustratingly, the Goomy didn't even seemed phased. It just kept laughing, much to her anger.

Serena's eye twitched, and Yugo and Rin winced in tandem. Everyone in Sinnoh with half a brain knew what The Eye Twitch meant.

Without budging another facial muscle, Serena released her Weavile from its Pokéball. "Weavie. Use Ice Shard."

The Goomy's face fell as the Weavile's face simultaneously broke into a grin. With a shriek of alarm, the Goomy jumped from the doorway to the floor to avoid the stream of icy arrows, slithering across the floor as the Weavile chased it into the gym, Serena cheering her Pokémon on the whole way.

Neither Rin nor Yugo said anything for a long while, just stood there, watching the carnage. Finally, Rin vocalised her thoughts in a monotone voice.

"Yugo, go find Yuri" she told him.

Yugo frowned, confused. "Er…why?"

"Because I need someone to distract Yuya whilst you look for Yuzu" she explained, walking it the gym to try and break up the ongoing fight between dragon and dark types "And if there's one thing Yuri's good at, its being distracting."

* * *

Most of the champions had various titles bestowed upon them based on their reign at the top of that particular region's league. Alder was the oldest champion. Green Oak had the shortest reign. Lance was the only champion of a region to have never beaten the previous champion (Red had conveniently gone missing and Lance was selected to fill his spot at the head of the Kanto and Johto leagues.

Reiji, to the surprise of many, wasn't the youngest champion. Though some disbelieved it, Reiji hadn't become the champion of the Sinnoh league until he was thirteen, though Reira had achieved the same thing by the age of ten, albeit it he turned down the opportunity to take Reiji's throne. Instead Reiji was known as the toughest champion – in the three years he'd been champion, he'd been defeated exactly once, by Reira. The reason the Sinnoh league produced some of the greatest trainers in the world was because Reiji was so tough to beat. Most people who had made it through the elite four were content to let that be the end of their winning streak – just getting the chance to face Reiji was enough of an honour.

Though his reputation did have an unfortunate side effect – not many people were willing to challenge the Sinnoh league when they knew they'd have a much easier time in other regions. Which meant that, particularly the elite four, had very little to do all day.

Which lead to bouts of boredom.

Like this one.

Reiji pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at the carnage before him. "Why?"

The kitchen of Lily of the Valley Island had been completely upturned. There was chocolate syrup on the floor and mayonnaise on the walls. The table was a mess of baking powder and batter. The oven was beeping in distress and billowing black smoke. There was a big black lump thing in the middle of the table covered in what looked like icing sugar. As were the four faces surrounding it.

"Nii-San!" Reira gasped, automatically drawing the attention of the other three.

Sora Shuin'in, the league's most frequent visitor that may as well have moved in by this point, grinned up at Reiji with teeth covered in cake batter. "Hey Akaba Senior! How's your day going?"

"What did you do to my kitchen?" Reiji asked, his voice low and serious.

Shuin'in's grin faltered and he appeared to swallow nervously. Sawatari and Gongenzaka shared a look of worry and Reira dipped his head.

"We…er…" Gongenzaka tried to find the words and failed. The fighting-type user had been at the league almost as long as Reiji had and Reiji was happy to have someone as level headed as he was around on a daily basis, to balance the sheer insanity he had to put up with from Kurosaki and Sawatari (and more recently, Shuin'in). But he wasn't exactly brilliant at thinking on his feet either.

"Well it would've gone much better if I was put in charge" Sawatari proclaimed, which at least reassured Reiji that not all normalcy had been thrown out the window.

The general understanding from the public was that Shingo Sawatari had used his political connections to usurp the previous elite four bug-type user and take his place. What actually happened was there had been a deep falling out between Dennis, Sawatari's predecessor, and the elite four's resident steel-type user, Kurosaki. Reiji didn't particularly understand what the disagreement was about, other than apparently Kurosaki's sister, the Oreburgh City gym leader, was somehow involved. Regardless, Reiji couldn't have his elite four at each other's throats every working day. So, after consulting with Gongenzaka and Reira, it was decided Dennis would be asked to leave, with a recommendation he try out to run a facility at the Battle Frontier, hoping that an entire sea being placed between them would end the pointless feud.

With Dennis' departure being so sudden, Reiji needed to find a replacement, quickly. Yuya recommended his old friend Shingo Sawatari as a replacement. Reiji had had his doubts, mostly over the fact Sawatari had never held a position as a gym leader let alone an elite four member before, but agreed Sawatari could stand in as a temporary placeholder until a suitable replacement could be found.

A year and half later, Sawatari was still the elite four's fourth member.

Yeah, Reiji could see where the rumours were coming from. For an elite four member to have never held a gym leader position before was almost unheard of (almost, except for Reira. But then again, Reira could easily have taken Reiji's champion spot should he wish it and making him a gym leader seemed like too much as an insult for a trainer for his calibre). And maybe Sawatari had been around too long, and it was time to finally find a real replacement for Dennis' position. The other elite four members seemed to have made their minds up, what with Sora hanging around Lily of the Valley island to visit Reira more often than usual and Kurosaki had been casually bringing up the Battle Factory's Head Crow Hogan's name in conversation a lot lately, but Reiji hadn't quite been able to show Sawatari the door yet. The bug-type user had good strategies considering he championed what was considered to be the weakest archetype, and had a wide move pool that not many people expected of bug type Pokémon. Despite his attitude, Sawatari was as good as Yuya had recommended.

Just, obviously not good at whatever trial had been attempted here.

"What would have gone better?" he asked, looking directly at Sawatari. Sawatari immediately balked under the pressure and looked away, his head all but being tucked into his neck. Even attention-grabbers sometimes knew when it was in their best interests to shut up.

Finally, Reira put everyone out of their misery and pushed the burnt lump of dough towards him nervously.

"Happy birthday, Nii-San" he declared.

Reiji didn't know how to react. Surprise? Joy? Disapproval? Was it even his birthday?

"Kurosaki said to say happy birthday for him" Gongenzaka added.

Huh? It was his birthday, wasn't it? He'd completely forgotten it was today. Not that he'd ever properly celebrated a birthday before. His parents certainly weren't the type to celebrate such trivial things and he'd spent the last three years living at the league. Until Reira arrived on the scene eight months ago, no one there had ever even asked about a birthday. Reiji found he was…oddly touched that they'd tried to do something special for him.

Glancing down the…cake, he smiled up at the four people standing around the table like a bunch of children whose hands had been caught in the cookie jar.

"Thank you" he told them sincerely.

A collective sigh of relief was let out around the room.

"Though perhaps, next time" he recommended, patting Reira on the head "Just buy a cake?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Shuin'in protested "It's not that bad – you just have to pick the black bits off!"

Reiji was sure that constituted the whole cake, but Shuin'in appeared determined to prove his point and began, sure enough, picking the black bits off, trying to find a part of the cake that wasn't burnt.

"You're ruining it!" Sawatari all but screamed as Gongenzaka's hands hovered nearby, unsure whether to grab Shuin'in hands to save the cake or declare it a lost cause.

Reiji couldn't help but chuckle. If he had to celebrate his birthday with anyone, he wouldn't protest at it being these four.

* * *

"So, let me guess. She finally left you for actual dragon tamer. Let me guess. Lance? Or was it Claire?"

Yuya's smile became even more plastic as he produced a Piloswine-sized stack of paperwork that all had to be covered in the meeting agenda. If Yuzu was going to be a child and disappear suddenly without any warning, then it fell to Yuya to do the unpleasant task of paperwork.

Behind him came a Kommo-o, pushing a cart filled with even more paperwork. It was visibly straining until a Garchomp came along to help it out. They entered the room at the back of the Hearthome Gym, where Yuzu could have her office out of sight of the public areas of the gym. Hanging one of the walls was a photo of Yuzu and Yuya and their teams, which got updated every time their little family grew. Yuya dared not call attention to it or Yuri would see it and Yuya had had enough people making his life miserable today.

Yuri's Roserade and Salazzle looked at each other and Yuri had no doubt that if they could raise their eyebrows at the massive amount of paperwork then they would. He was almost tempted to do it himself because that was probably most of the Lush Forrest right there on that cart. Instead, he whistled appreciatively and took a photo of Yuya with the Mt Coronet of paper.

"What are you doing" Yuya mumbled, his voice so flat it would simply be a crime to put a question mark there.

"Sending this to Dennis – he has the most Twitter followers" Yuri told him, doing exactly that as he spoke "With any luck your errant girlfriend will see it and get her butt back here before Serena razed her gym to ground because I am not taking the blame for that."

"There was no doubt about that, Yuri" Yuya informed him dryly, sighing down at all the paperwork before him. He sat down in Yuzu's chair, a Jangmo-o jumping up into his lap and curling up there, waiting to be petted.

Yuri pursed his lips, not pleased with the lack of reaction he got. Usually Yuya was among the most fun people to prod, due to the fact Yuri was always guaranteed a reaction. But 'depressed, mumbling' Yuya wasn't picking up the cards.

"So, what was the great tempest about, anyhow?" Yuri asked, a snippy tone to his voice to indicate just out annoyed being left out of the gossip loop made him feel "I turned up and everyone's acting all edgy and won't tell me anything. Personally I think I'm the person in the best position to know – after all, I don't give a crap about either of your feelings."

It was such as Yuri thing to say that Yuya almost laughed despite himself. His face did break into a grin, delighting his Pokémon who had been worry about his mental state all morning.

"I'm sorry they dragged you into this, Yuri" he chuckled "I'm fine."

"If you were 'fine', you would've told me to smile already" Yuri retorted.

Yuya did actually laugh this time, although sheepishly. "I mean it, I'm alright. It's just…who just gets up and leaves in the morning without leaving a note or anything? I mean, she could be in trouble and I wouldn't even know about."

"Be honest, has she ever gotten herself into a situation she couldn't handle herself?" Yuri pointed out "She's not Dennis – you don't need to watch her to make sure she doesn't walk off the side of a building."

He wasn't joking. It had actually happened once. Hence Yuri all but blackmailing people to get the rights to the nearest gym to the league headquarters. Of course, that was before Dennis got himself kicked out of the league, but the point still stood. Yuzu and Dennis couldn't be more different people – Yuzu didn't need a guy to constantly be watching out for her.

Yuya levelled Yuri an unimpressed look. "Do you know what she tried to do last week? She tried to climb up to Spear Pillar. Alone. With only fairy-type Pokémon."

Ah. Okay. That was fairly stupid.

"How did the Bronzongs take it?" Yuri asked, entirely sarcastically.

"Not well" Yuya gritted his teeth to declare "Understand my worry?"

"Not at all" Yuri responded "I don't give a crap about your feelings, remember?"

Yuya laughed full heartedly at that. "Yuri, you are fantastic and you should never change."

"'Fantastic' wasn't quite what I was going for" Yuri told him "'Terrifying' or 'Sociopathic' would suffice."

"I apologise to your ego" Yuya told him, half-preoccupied searching through some files "Hey, can you help me find the file on letting the Eterna Gym have late hours?"

"I will personally kiss your feet if you get Serena to agree to that ridiculous request" Yuri informed him, keeping at the names on the front of the files despite himself "And I am not going to help you look through—" He paused and frowned at one of the files. "'Forum of discussion with regards to the use of the southern gyms to generate solar energy as to sustain their own use'. What the hell?"

"It's Gongenzaka's idea" Yuya explained "Yuzu and Yugo's gyms are the size of a football field each and they're just steel on their roofs. Not to mention they use more electricity than almost all the other gyms combined. And yours and Ruri's aren't far behind. He suggested we add solar panels to the roofs to generate electricity. I was going to ask you about it, actually. Since your city is the expert on managing solar power and all."

"Don't look at me – there are actual electricians that deal with that side of it; they're just glad the electric-type gym's moved away to be someone else's problem" Yuri snorted "Are you telling me the geothermal energy thing Akaba set up under Yugo's gym isn't producing enough power to run that idiot's light show? And we wonder why we don't get paid as much as other regions' gym leaders."

"It's just an idea" Yuya pointed out "It'll take careful organising if it's to go ahead – all of the southern gyms will have to close at some point, and we'll have to set up a time and date for each that likely to be the least disruptive to challengers."

"How come we're only hearing about this now?" Yuri frowned "I'm from Sunnyshore and I hadn't heard about this."

"Someone at the league mixed it up with an expansion for the Veilstone shopping centre – I only found it a few days ago" Yuya explained.

Yuri scoffed. "Paper-pushers. We should put them to work in the mines."

"I'm pretty sure Ruri would never approve for the Oreburgh mines to be used as a form of torture, but you could always raise the idea during the meeting" Yuya pointed out, now leafing through a file entitled 'Have Yuri and Rin switch gyms already' "I swear this is the fourth time Yugo's suggested this. Don't suppose you fancy a move to the arctic, do you? It would probably do some good for her to be nearby him. And you would be closer to Dennis. I know it would means you wouldn't be the final gym anymore, but…"

"I'll put some thought into it" Yuri stated, which Yuya took to mean 'Only when Yugo gets on his knees and begs me for it. And even then I'll still probably say no just to torture the guy some more'.

"Can you believe he actually got Candice to support his campaign?" Yuya wrinkled his nose as he read "Apparently Rin tried to enter the Snowpoint Temple. Not many people up there are happy about that. At least she has the excuse that she's not a Snowpoint native. And then there's this whole business with—"

Yuya was cut off by loud CRASH! outside the office.

Yuya instantly shot to his feet. "What was that?"

Yuri didn't answer – he was always making his way out of the office into the main gym area, his Pokémon just behind him. Yuya didn't hesitate to follow him.

What greeted him was a sobbing Goomy launching itself into his arms, a Weavile just behind it and the gym leaders Serena and Rin not far behind said dark type Pokémon, one cheering it on and the other telling the Pokémon to 'hold it!'.

Instantly the chasers all ground to a halt, staring up at Yuya with wide eyes, as Yuya himself levelled the three of them with a glare. As the Goomy continued to cry hysterically in Yuya's arms, the Weavile retreated to Serena's side, confirming its loyalties.

Serena took a deep breath before addressing Yuya. "Look, Yuya, that thing just dumped slime on my head. Look, you can see it running down my face, right now! I was just showing it a bit of discipline. No harm, no foul! Right?"

Yuya continued to say nothing, just glaring in Serena's general direction, as the Goomy frantically shook its head from side to side through its tears, appearing to deny Serena's recall of events. Yuri and Rin both felt the tension in the air, one edging back into the office and then other towards the warp tile that she had just come from.

Serena swallowed nervously, feeling the tension too. "Yuya, come on. We can settle this normally. That's no reason to act all pissy about it."

Without a word, Yuya released a Salamence from its Pokéball.

The Weavile recognised what was going to happen a split second before everyone else did, as it made a break towards Rin and the warp panel.

"Salamence. Hyper Beam."

The Salamence took aim and tried to hit the running Weavile with the bolt of energy from its mouth. It instead missed and hit Serena's Bisharp, knocking it out cold.

"Oh no you don't!" Serena declared, summoning about one of her Pokémon "Scrafty! Use Brick Break!"

As the Scrafty knocked his Salamence off balance, Yuya called for his Kommo-o, the had just pushed past Yuri to get out of the office. "Salamence! Kommo-o! Flamethrower!"

"Guys! Come on!" Rin protested, peeking out from behind the Abomasnow she had summoned as a barricade between herself and the raging battle "We're gym leaders! We have to be more mature about this and OH MY GOD!"

She yelped and ducked back behind her Abomasnow as a Flamethrower went flying over her head and hit the wall. The other Flamethrower hit the wall as well, causing Serena's two Pokémon to scatter for cover.

Yuri's Salazzle looked up at the ceiling before crying out with alarm, retreating with its master and its fellow teammate Roserade to take cover from what was about to happen.

Rin looked up and saw the problem immediately. The Hearthome gym had been originally designed as a ghost-type gym. Whilst some gyms, like Rin's, were fire-proofed to deal with this exact problem, this one was not. The amount of heat coming off of the twin Flamethrowers was starting to melt the thin steel walls and the ceiling above was starting was descend towards them.

"You've got to be kidding me!" she yelled out as her Abomasnow reached up to halt the ceiling's path to crushing them all.

Rin's cry caught the attention of Yuya and Serena, who then also clued on to the mortal danger there were in. Serena swore whilst Yuya silently debated whether it was worth attempting to save the gym or fleeing the place and grovelling to Yuzu later.

"Let's scadaddle!" Serena declared, and Yuya found that to be the best course of action.

"Starly! Air cutter!"

Several Air Cutter attacks hit the melting walls, causing them to crumple and the ceiling to fall faster. Rin's Abomasnow groaned under the immense weight and Yuya's Kommo-o lifted its hands up to help the ice-type Pokémon out a bit.

"Ruri!"

"Ruri, what are you doing?!"

Ruri, who had just teleported in via the warp panel behind Rin, glanced sheepishly around the room. "Oops, sorry. I thought we were demolishing the place so we didn't have to have the meeting."

"Oh yes! Demolishing the gym whilst we're in the very heart of it!" Serena shot back at her "Of course that's exactly what we're doing! How could anyone misinterpret that?!"

"We're all going to die" Shun stated rather calmly, frowning up at the falling ceiling of the room he had just arrived in.

"Mimikyuu! Chandlelure! Psychic! Jellicent! Hydro Pump!"

The ceiling glowed blue and started to rise again, to the relief of the Abomasnow and Kommo-o taking its weight, and the walls began to fold out again. A well-aimed Hydro Pump cooled the walls down before more damage could take place.

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

"Nice timing, Yuto" Shun remarked to the Canalave gym leader, who'd warped in just in time to save the day.

Yuto shrugged like it wasn't a big deal.

"Hey guys! Look who turned up!" Yugo also warped into the room, his happy smile falling as he took in the destruction "Whoa! What happened? Did Yuri finally snap and actually burn down Yuzu's gym?"

"He seriously went through on his threat?" Ruri all but laughed at the idea.

"I am responsible for none this!" Yuri insisted indignantly, marching out the office once he was certain the danger had passed "Blame these heathens for nearly killing us all!"

"What heavens? What are you talking about? And what happened to my gym? Rin, what happened here?"

Everyone turned in surprise to the warp panel again, where people had began moving more into the room because it was getting pretty crowded over there. To the surprise of many, it was the Hearthome City gym leader herself standing on the warp panel, surveying the room with a look of astonishment.

"Hey guys, look! Yuzu came back!" Yugo declared with a smile "She just waltzed in through the front door."

Yuya swallowed nervously, still holding his terrified Goomy in his arms. Most of the room was wondering how he was managing that, since they assumed the mass of smile was pretty heavy.

"Yuya…" he mumbled, bowing his head.

"Yuya!" Yuzu reacted with surprised, but didn't appear angry "You're here? I thought you were sleeping in today."

"…What?" Yuya stared at her with bafflement, the other leaders' heads moving between the couple as they spoke, like they were witnessing a verbal tennis match.

"Well since you were so tired last night that we had to stay in Veilstone, I figured you wouldn't be up for coming to the meeting today, so I wrote a note saying I'd attend the meeting for both of us – I left it with your lunch box" Yuzu helpfully explained.

Yuya winced. He'd been so upset about Yuzu leaving Veilstone without a word that he'd headed over to Hearthome without picking up his lunchbox.

Yuzu continued on, apparently not noticing the change in Yuya's expression. "I was flying here on Toge when some idiot riding a Charizard knocked us out of the sky and we ended up near Lake Valor. So I walked over to the Pokémon centre in Sunnyshore City and they agreed to look after Toge overnight and I started to walk back here. I was getting close to Pastoria when I just so happened I ran into one of those Roaming Pokémon – Azelf I think – and it was about to teleport off when I suggested it use Teleport on me and send me to Hearthome instead. I don't think it minded so long as it was left alone and I woke up in front of the Pokémon Centre down the street. Didn't expect to get here to see my gym on fire though. What happened?"

Most of the gym leaders were silent after the long ramble of an answer. Then Ruri and Yugo started to laugh, followed shortly by Yuto. The others all looked at each other with bemused smirks except for Shun, whose look of contempt portrayed exactly how he felt about Yuzu gang-pressing a legendary Pokémon into service as a glorified courier, Yuri, who didn't appear to care, and Yuya, who just looked relieved.

"So, you're not mad at me?" Yuya confirmed, looking like a thousand pound weight had just been lifted off of his shoulders.

"Of course not, silly" Yuzu all but laughed "Why would I be mad at you? You haven't even done anything wrong."

"I know – that's why I was so confused when you just disappeared" Yuya pointed out "Why didn't you call me or something?"

"My Pokétch got broken in the fall" Yuzu explained "Sorry – I was going to find someone with a Pokétch, but no one at the Lakefront Hotel had one and the trainers along the route were more preoccupied trying to battle me than help me out."

"Well that's that mystery solved" Rin remarked with a smile.

"See! I told you! Nothing to worry about!" Yugo declared, causing Rin and Serena to sweatdrop.

"But seriously, why's my gym on fire?" Yuzu frowned "Good thing Yuto's hosting the meeting next month. You can go burn down his gym instead."

"Mine's right on the waterfront with a state-of-the-art sprinkler system" Yuto told everyone, as if he was honestly expecting the same thing to happen to his gym next month, like it was some sort of bizarre monthly tradition to burn the hosting gym leader's gym down. "Nice try."

"Hey, would you look at that" Yuya remarked with his usual happy smile, looking around the room at everyone gathered "All eight of us are here! There's even an elite four member here to supervise! Now we can start the meeting! Who thinks we should start with a discuss about raising the monetary tax on trainers who loose during a gym battle in order to prevent copious retrials?"

The entire room simultaneously groaned, mumbling about how only Yuya could find some level of joy in sitting around talking about taxes and how even Yuri found meetings about them too sadistic to use as a reasonable torture. Some Pokémon retreated back to their Pokéballs at the announcement.

If the Goomy in Yuya's arm snickered at their reactions, it wasn't because it was now getting revenge for trying to faint it with an Ice Shard. It totally wasn't.

Okay, yes, it completely was.


	2. Battle Frontier

**After talking with** **Flokingaround I decided to make a continuations to Gym Demolition about the Battle Frontier. I'm not sure if this story will turn into a series of Gen 4 oneshots, but I'll leave it as 'completed' until I decide.**

 **Kaito's kinda ended up with his Zexal personality, since he didn't really get one in Arc-V and I'm unfortunately Zexal trash (seriously, I freakin' love that show). And Jack has psychic powers - since he has Caitlin's place and Caitlin canonically has powers similar to Aki's from 5D's Season 1. Also, I know Caitlin strictly never battles in the Battle Frontier, but as if Mr Atlas was going to sit on the side lines whilst Edo did all the battling for him.**

 **Just a quick list of who runs which facility and their titles. I don't think you need to know about the facilities beforehand though, since they get somewhat explained in the story:**

· **Kaito – Tower Tycoon (Battle Tower)**

 **· Crow – Factory Head (Battle Factory)**

 **· Dennis – Arcade Star (Battle Arcade)**

 **· Asuka – Hall Matron (Battle Hall)**

 **· Edo – Castle Valet (Battle Castle)**

 **· Jack – Castle King (Battle Castle)**

* * *

 **I freaking hate this job**

Kaito glared down at the Xtransceiver on his desk, sending the message on the screen for a third time, just to ensure Shun 'sorry I didn't get your call, I was in a league meeting and Reiji went on for, like, four hours about Yanma migration in the Pastoria Marsh and would not let me leave' Kurosaki answered within the next five minutes. Honestly, Kaito had brought the stupid device all the way back from Unova for him, the least Shun could do was actually use it for once.

He reminded himself to ask Shun about when the position in the elite four would open up because, Crow Hogan be damned, the second that happened, Kaito was trading this island for one with a significantly lesser population of people to harass him. After all, he had no problems with Akaba, Shun would find it increasingly difficult to ignore him anymore and no doubt the trainers he faced would be a lot more challenging, having fought through the entire Sinnoh league rather than just boarded a ferry to the Battle Zone with very little in the way of strategic training under their belts.

Maybe he could offer Hogan _his_ job? Kaito loved science a great deal, but even he grew tired of the scientists that made a living bustling around the halls of the Battle Factory and he was sure Hogan, who he doubted had even gone to school, enjoyed their presence any more than he did. Running the Battle Tower was regarded as a prestigious position and it would allow Hogan to battle with his own Pokémon. Hey, maybe this could actually work.

Kaito proceeded to mull the possible strategies over in his head, wondering if maybe he could pull Hogan aside and ask him to keep this all on the down-low, but then again Hogan was a blabbermouth so there was no way that would hold long enough; he almost _happy_ for the first time in a long time, when someone loudly barged into his office just five minutes from the beginning of his lunch break.

"Mr Tenjo, sir—"

"I just sent the last one packing half-an-hour ago!" Kaito shot back at whoever it was, losing his cool for a second before hastily smoothing his face and tone into something more respectable, calm but quiet. "There cannot possibly be another challenger after so little time."

The woman in the green beret responsible for escorting the single-battle trainers around the tower (he should probably remember her name, out of curtesy if nothing else, but he was a little annoyed to find out that he couldn't recall it, as if he wasn't feeling frustrated enough already) had stopped in the doorway, looking like she was halfway between announcing something she deemed vitally important and throwing herself at Kaito's feet and begging for mercy. Kaito just stared at her coldly, wondering how long it would take for the attendant to find her backbone this time.

"Not a challenger, sir" she explained "Something much, _much_ worse."

"Is Stark Mountain erupting?" Kaito asked, more to prove a point than actually asking a question.

The women jumped, like she was expecting him to lose his cool every time he spoke now, before answering. "No, sir."

"Then it's not all that urgent then, is it" Kaito pointed out "If you disappear now and don't come back until after lunch, then I'll pretend I never saw you."

"Well, sir" the attendant squirmed, causing Kaito roll his eyes and look at his Xtransceiver again, noting Shun still hadn't gotten back to him yet. "This is a problem you may be interested in resolving. It's for the good of the Frontier, sir."

For the good of the Frontier. He almost told the attendant to get lost for speaking those aft-repeated words in his presence.

Instead, he scoffed. "Since when have I ever been _interested_ in—"

Without warning, it felt like the entire tower got lifted three feet in the air before being dumped unceremoniously back on its foundations. Kaito had to grip the seat of his chair to prevent being flung across the room like the potted plant Asuka had placed on his desk to 'liven up the place' along with the photo of Haruto on his first day at school. His Xtransceiver somehow jumped from the desk into his lap and the attendant screamed as she was almost hurled off her feet, gripping the doorway for support. Kaito swore he heard the sound of glass shattering on the floors below them and multiple people cry out about earthquakes.

Kaito's eye twitched, making the attendant wince with even more fear than the sudden upset had inspire.

"I thought you said it _wasn't_ erupting" he stated quietly, and the attendant wasn't entirely sure if he was joking or too pissed off to remember a question mark had to go at the end there.

"It isn't, sir" she told him nervously "I'm afraid a challenger in the Battle Castle—"

"Are you KIDDING ME?!" Kaito all but roared, jumping up from his seat with an aura of pure, unadultered rage.

The attendant tried to intervene. "Sir—"

"Who the hell reached the fiftieth floor of the Battle Castle at _11:55_ on a Thursday?! Don't people have _jobs_?!"

"He had a lot of Castle Points saved up, sir."

"Oh, so he cheated his way there!" That didn't seem to cheer Kaito up at all "Just what I wanted to hear! I swear I'm going to find that stupid 'king' and wrap my hands around his—"

Kaito wasn't interrupted by the attendant, who had wisely shut up by this point, but by the Xtransceiver that he had been unconsciously gripping in his hand, buzzing with a reply from Shun.

 **Ha sux to be u. going for ice cream w/ haruto and reira ill tell them u said hi**

Kaito roared with wordless rage, hurling the Xtransceiver across the room to join the potted plant and the picture. The attendant shrunk behind the door, determined not to let him take his frustrations out on her. That position at the league better open up pretty quickly so they attendants could put their master plan of snatching Asuka from the Battle Hall to be their new, much kinder boss into action.

"How did he take it?" the attendant usually dressed in pink asked, having been hiding just down the corridor, holding the lift during the exchange in case a speedy exit was necessary.

"Not very well" the green attendant confirmed "Maybe we should've told Edo to hold off until after lunch. At least then he wouldn't have been hungry."

"Get out of my way" Kaito scowled, pushing past the two gossiping women and pulling on his coat and he headed for the lift at the end of the corridor.

The two attendants watched with worry as Tower Tycoon Kaito Tenjo stormed out of the building, muttering about Phoenix and how it was _his_ job to moderate the damage, why was Kaito doing it?

* * *

There was a lot of things one could refer to Kaito Tenjo as, most with great honour and respect. 'The youngest Frontier Frontier Brain in history' was one of them. 'An outstanding trainer that went toe-to-toe with Reiji for more than three hours in a single battle' was another. 'The son of the esteemed Dr Faker' was one that must not be announced in his presence for fear of a very negative response. 'Brave', 'Inspiring' and 'A visionary genius' had all been tossed around before. Hall Matron Asuka Tenjoin's personal favourite though, was 'scroogy git'.

It was Kaito's 'scroogy git' tendencies that made him lay down the law that no Frontier facility was allowed to close for lunch before noon on the dot. Any sign of closing up early than that would lead to the Frontier Brain suffering severe repercussions. Many were of the opinion that he sat in his office on the top floor of the Battle Tower just before lunch, watching the Frontier from his window for any sign of a facility closing up early so that he could liven up his day with a good reprimand. People sometimes called him 'Mister Snape' behind his back – most notably the people from the Battle Arcade, who suffered immensely from Kaito's utter dislike of both their Frontier Brain and the loud music that poured from their facility every day of the week.

Asuka was the only Frontier brain that Kaito didn't have a noticeable problem with and that he tolerated more so than the others, and she intended to keep it that way. So there she was, stood at the far end of the Battle Hall's runway, watching the second hand tick around the clock as if that was going to make lunch happen faster. All the challengers had gone for lunch already and there really wasn't anything to do, but rules were rules.

She turned her head towards a worker stood on a tall ladder, messing around with one of the Battle Hall's spotlights. It had been playing up all day and, although it wasn't anything vital, they may as well try and fix it when the Battle Hall was all but empty.

CRASH!

The ground lurched and Asuka felt like the entire facility had moved a metre closer to the Battle Tower with the force of it. Instantly, every window and spotlight smashed into little glass shards that twirled to the ground, those remaining in the Hall scurrying to avoid them. The worker on the ladder fell from it, landing on the worker who had been holding the ladder still for him.

Reaching out to grab the curtain in order to stay upright, Asuka called to the rest of the Hall: "Is everyone okay?"

Slowly, she received some shaken affirmatives and the workers got to their feet, apparently unharmed.

With the only damage being monetary, Asuka quickly ran through a list of what could be the cause of the sudden movement of earth. If it had something to do with the volcano, then they would've seen more signs of an imminent eruption before any earth shakes. It wasn't an earthquake either – Asuka's brother had cut his teeth a ground-type specialist so she knew how earthquakes worked – earthquakes consisted of multiple large side-to-side shakes, not a single harsh one. It couldn't even be a Pokémon tunnelling under the Hall – that couldn't possibly produce such a large force.

Then what had it been?

Well, there was one more option.

Asuka's heard sunk at the thought, but she couldn't think of any other options.

"I thought the whole point of the Battle Castle was that it was so absurdly complicated that nobody stuck around to _reach_ a fiftieth opponent" she mumbled.

"Are _you_ alright, miss?" someone called.

"At the moment, yes" Asuka told them through gritted teeth "Probably not in a few minutes."

With a sigh, she brushed off her jacket and skirt and marched along the catwalk towards the exit.

"Where are you going, miss?" someone else called.

Asuka didn't even stop as she answered them. "To save a certain idiot's life."

* * *

In Dennis' opinion, alcohol fuelled the best of ideas. At least, most of his best ideas came to him when he was completely smashed. (Yuri disagreed but what did Yuri know? He conked out after the second glass whilst Dennis and Sora had fun).

Somewhere in the few minutes before the new year, on the way to passing out, a truly brilliant thought entered Dennis' head. Rather than him just picking a playlist for the Battle Arcade every day, the attendants could have free reign over the music on their birthdays. It would provide variety and bring his employees closer together, like one giant family.

The system had been working well all year.

Except Dennis had forgotten about the Tyler twins.

It had been a disaster from the start. One twin loved techno whilst the other was a rock 'n' roll fan. Dennis had suggested taking turns, but after every turn the twin that had just played argued that – due to song length or some other contrived idea – that they should have another turn immediately and an argument would break out again.

Dennis was at a loss of what to do. His harmonious little family was starting to act like the Brady Bunch and it was more than he could take.

"Maybe we should just, like…ban them?" someone, Emma wasn't it?, suggested "I mean, if they can't decide and they're just going to fight then they should get privileges revoked."

"Oh what a brilliant idea" Dennis slipped into a sarcastic mode he'd unfortunately picked up from Yuri "Tell you what, why don't you go tell them that?" Emma's eyes grew wide before they averted their gaze to the ground. "Or perhaps Jacob wants the honours?"

Jacob backed away, glancing between the fighting twins and Dennis' completely insincere smile.

The music that had just played started a loop again as no other song had been picked, leading to the twins starting up the blame game again.

Fine, if that's how they were going to be, Dennis wasn't going to stand for it.

"Alright, break it up" he called to them, walking along the edge of the upper ledge of the Arcade to reach the music board "I already told you, I don't—"

The entire ground lurched to the left and everyone was simultaneously knocked off their feet. The lights shattered and the glass blocks fell out of the scoreboard, narrowly avoiding what was left of the audience below.

Emma cleared the smoke from in front of her face and looked around for the Frontier Brain, a feeling of alarm spreading through her body when she realised she couldn't see him.

"Mr Macfield!" she called.

"Down here!" a voice called from the other side of the ledge.

The feeling of alarm increases and images of the Arcade Star lying in a broken heap of bones on the floor of the Arcade took root in Emma's mind as she hurried towards the ledge.

She spotted Dennis right away. Thankfully he wasn't on the floor, but lying on the stripe of metal that attached the scoreboard to the wall, just wide and strong enough to support the Frontier Brain's weight. The fall also wasn't that momentous – just about two metres from where he'd fallen.

"Are you okay, sir?" she called down to him.

"No! Ow! It hurts!" Dennis complained "What even was that? Is the mountain erupting or something?"

Emma stared a look with Jacob, both agreeing with what the other suspected was the culprit.

"No, we don't think so, sir" she informed him "It came from the direction of the Battle Castle."

Dennis' face turned ashen as he stared up at her from his perch.

Emma looked over her shoulder at Jacob again. "Jake, can you get a ladder. I think we're—"

"No! Just leave me here!"

Emma looked back at the Arcade Star again in surprise. "Sir? Do you have a spinal injury or—?"

"Just don't tell anyone I'm here" Dennis all but whimpered "And if Kaito asks, I never came into work."

Emma and Jacob shared another look, this one of bafflement "Um…ok sir. But, why?"

Dennis looked up at her, seeming genuinely afraid. "Because I don't _need_ to give Kaito a _reason_ to hate me – he already does!"

* * *

"What the hell is this thing?"

"Popolio. A water and fairy type, sir. Last of the new ones from Alola."

Crow Hogan – Battle Factory Head, Pokémon Breeder and all around nice guy – stared in bewilderment at the Pokémon on the bench, which was lying on its stomach and clapping its tails together with a big grin in its face. It was like something Crow expected to see in the circus.

"Yuya's gonna freaking love this" he declared "I'm gonna give it to him as birthday present."

The Popolio seemed to get even more excited at that, jumping up and down for joy. Then again, if he'd spent eleven hours on a flight halfway across the world, Crow would want to jump up and down at the first touch of solid ground too.

The scientist who'd brought the three Pokémon in winced slightly. Whether it was because of Crow's words, or because further along the desk the Litten had grabbed the Rowlet's wing in its jaws and would not let go, no matter how many times the Rowlet used Peck on it.

"I'm afraid these Pokémon are on load from Professor Kukui on a temporary basis, sir" he explained "Just long enough so we can see how they interact with Sinnoh Pokémon."

"Hmmm" Crow acknowledged him. He wished, for the millionth time, that the Pokémon in his Battle Factory weren't always 'on load', either to trainers or from Professors. "I'll have to go to Alola and get one myself then. This is too good to pass up. Where did you get these guys from again?"

It would take Crow much long than expected to find out the answer to that question due to the most unlikely series of events.

Without warning, the entire Factory appeared to jump into the air, knocking Crow off his feet whilst the scientist just remained standing. The Litten panicked and let go of the Rowlet, jumping towards the nearest surface in the hope that would be stable. Unfortunately, that surface contained the button for one of the tanks of Pokéballs storing the Factory's load Pokémon. Pokéballs rolled everywhere, under chairs and counter tops and even underfoot of the Rowlet, who'd jumped down to the floor once it had gotten free of the Litten. Knocked over by the stampede of Pokéballs, the Rowlet proceeded to run into the leg of the scientist, knocking him over. Said scientist's head hit the desk of the way down, knocking him out cold.

Once Crow was relatively sure the shaking had stopped, he got to his feet, surveying the damage. At least none of the Pokéballs had broken open and no more Pokémon had gotten lose (this time), but it didn't take a genius to work out who was behind the chaos.

With a sigh, Crow called into the open doorway. "Can somebody get a medic?"

As if cued, three more scientists came rushing into the room. Two rushed to the aid of their fallen colleague hovered in the doorway, eyes wide at the chaos.

With frustration welling up inside him over the fact this had happened _again_ , Crow glanced at the Popolio. The poor guy appeared terrified, frozen to the spot with eyes wide with horror, unable to process what had just happened. With a sigh, Crow passed the water-type a toy, cheering it up instantly.

"Can someone calm those two down?" he addressed the remaining scientist, waving his arm in the direction of the Rowlet and Litten, who were now cowering under one of the desks in fear. "I need to head over to the Battle Castle."

"What for, sir?" the scientist asked, partially out of curiosity, as Crow pushed past him into the corridor.

"To crack some skulls before Kaito beats me to it."

* * *

Edo Phoenix wasn't entirely sure what he had done wrong in his previous life, other than that it must have terrible to receive this level of punishment.

He was holding onto one of the posts just outside the Battle Chamber, forced to brace himself for the shocks that occurred every thirty seconds. Everyone else had evacuated the building or headed to secure locations. The match had been going on three minutes already. Surely it couldn't go on for much longer. Maybe Edo could get out of this unharmed.

The doors to the Battle Castle opened and Edo could practically feel Kaito's hands around his neck right now.

"You let him battle again?"

Thankfully, it wasn't Kaito, but Asuka who walked into the foyer. Another episode of ground shaking started up again, but it wasn't severe enough to knock her off her feet.

"Don't have much of a choice anymore" he told her.

"Officially you're in charge, you know" Asuka reminded him.

"As if he gives a Raticate's arse about 'officially'!" Edo scoffed "Have you tried trying to control Thy Majesty? 'You're just the Valet, Edo, remember that' – yeah, as if he ever lets me forget it!"

Asuka almost laughed, if it weren't for the door opening behind her. Edo visibly cringed and tried to hide behind her, bracing himself for the F5 Hurricane of rage to come and tear his world apart.

What entered, again, wasn't quite an F5 Hurricane of rage. More like, an F3.

"Where the hell is he?" Crow Hogan demanded, not even pausing to say hi.

Edo pointed nervously at the door to Battle Chamber. Without hesitation, Crow strode towards the double doors, intent on dragging the battle's instigator out by his oh-so-perfect hair.

"Wait! You can't go in there!" Edo insisted "The battle's still going on!"

"Do I look like I care?" Crow retorted with a scoff, wrenching the double doors open.

Instantly a wave of psychic energy sent the Factory Head flying across the foyer halfway to the entrance. The same shock wave knocked Asuka to the ground and only Edo's death grip on the support post saved him from doing the same.

Undeterred, Crow clambered to his feet, racing into the Battle Chamber with Edo and Asuka right behind him.

"Crow, wait!"

"JACK!" Crow all but roared as he emerged into the Battle Chamber "Stop it now!"

In the Battle Chamber, two opponents were going head-to-head. One was on their second Pokémon, the other on their last. The current loser commanding a Sudowoodo was clearly the challenger, his face somewhere between determined and terrified. The one currently winning was the Battle Castle King himself, Jack Atlas. He had command over a Heatran that Crow recognised as the one that some kid from the Survival Zone had traded him for a simply Baltoy (kids and their stupid decision making these days).

"Stay out of this, Crow!" Jack commanded with a level of pretention that was far too dramatic for the situation "A duel with the king must continue to the bitter end!"

"I'll show you the bitter end if you don't end this match in five seconds!" Crow responded with.

Rolling his eyes, Jack appeared to decide that toying with the challenger for a bit longer wasn't worth Crow's temper. "Heatran, Earth Power."

The final attack was more than enough to end the match with Jack as victor. The ground rumbled ominously one more time before all went quiet.

"And the King remains undefeated" Jack returned his Pokémon with a self-satisfied smirk, the challenger scampering out of the chamber with his tail between his legs.

"What the hell, man!" Crow immediately started yelling again "What the actual hell!"

"You're not making sense, as usual, Crow" Jack told him "In English, maybe."

"What were you thinking?!" Crow started on his monologue "I have three Alolan starters too scared to move, a mess that's going to take all day to clean up and now Kaito's on his way down here with a meat clever!"

Edo winced at the metaphor.

"I'm afraid I'm still not seeing your point, Crow" Jack declared, still too smug to be bothered "Perhaps get there sooner than later."

"Just give me a heads up when you're about to go all out!" Crow complained, sounding utterly defeated "Just ten minutes to lock everything up! Is it that hard?!"

"It's the Valet's job to warn people" Jack declared "PR is the reason he exists after all."

To be honest, Jack had a point. Crow hadn't considered that when he barged into the Castle – he just wanted the psychic shocks to stop. With this knowledge, he turned his gaze in Edo's direction.

"I tried! But I only had time to warn the people in the Castle!" Edo insisted "Because _somebody_ couldn't wait five minutes, could he!"

Edo glared at Jack across the chamber.

"The King should never leave his challengers waiting" Jack proclaimed "You should be faster."

Edo looked ready to blow a gasket, but all were quieted by the sound of footsteps and a faint whistling from the doorway behind them.

Asuka cringed. Kaito only whistled when he well and truly wanted to strike fear into the hearts of men. It usually worked.

Edo switched so he was standing on Asuka's other side, so she served as a meat shield between himself and the Tower Tycoon.

"Well" Kaito proclaimed, well and truly channelling his (not so) inner Nico di Angelo, as he stepped into the chamber "This is quite the lunchtime surprise."

Jack's face turned from smug to indignant at the arrival of the closest thing the Battle Frontier had to a leader.

"It was his fiftieth consecutive battle" Jack informed him "I have the right to every fiftieth battle in a run – I have written proof of it."

Kaito scowled because he knew Jack was right. Kaito had signed the agreement when he first started out as the Tower Tychoon – that Edo as Valet would take the silver challengers and Jack as King the gold ones – as he had been under the impression the Battle Castle wasn't as popular as it clearly was. Now Jack had hidden the contract somewhere that no one had found yet, or else they would've ripped that Arceus forsaken piece of paper into oblivion by now.

Jack Atlas had been born with psychic powers. This was common knowledge, but few people realised how serious the damage he could do was. Said powers usually hit their peak when he was at his most emotional – either elated or miserable or furious – so for the majority of his life, people had done everything possible to placate him (which certainly didn't help his spoilt brat tendencies). Pokémon battles tended to bring out the worst of it, but unfortunately Jack _liked_ Pokémon battles too much to give them up. No one had ever faced him in a six-on-six battle before because they couldn't take the effects of the psychic waves for that long. Heck, even Kaito, who fully believed to this day he could wipe the floor with Jack Atlas in an all out battle under normal circumstances, had only stayed upright as long as five, which was apparently a record breaker. Needless to say, the other Frontier Brains did everything in their power to prevent Jack from battling, from suggesting he take frequent holidays to making the Battle Castle so absurdly complicated that not as many people tried to take it on as the other facilities.

"Before. Lunch" was all Kaito said in response. Now he was probably going to have to spend his lunch break cleaning up the mess Jack had caused.

"A King is always ready for duel when a challenger approaches" Jack told him, the smugness creeping back into his voice now he knew he had Kaito. "Maybe that's why the Battle Tower has such a poor turnout."

Edo frantically mouthed: "Don't provoke him!", to no avail.

A vein in Kaito's forehead twitch as he silently debated whether the other Frontier Brains would help him bury the body if he snapped as killed Jack right now. Arceus, how did Sakaki _willingly_ put up with this guy?

Apparently Edo sensed his dark thoughts, as he had the stupid idea to try and speak up. "Um…Kaito. I-um…"

Kaito immediately turned to the Castle Valet. "Why were you not moderating?"

Edo tried to speak, honestly, but the words were too frightened to come out of his mouth. Stupid, stupid idea.

Crow thankfully came to Edo's aid. "Because this idiot started going at it before giving anyone any warning! Just wait until you see the state of my Factory floor!"

Kaito seemed somewhat content to blame Jack for everything, as his glare towards Edo softened slightly. "That true?"

The words still wouldn't leave Edo's throat. He shakily nodded instead, worried about setting off a violent outburst. Then again, Kaito's cold fury could be just as terrifying as his outbursts of rage.

Crow and Asuka weren't entirely sure why Kaito and Edo shared such a tense relationship, like all Edo had to do was open his mouth and the civility would be gone and there would be outright war. They both actually thought they would get along pretty well if they sat down and talked to each other for more than a few curt sentences. They both shared a penchant for getting into trouble due to reckless behaviour and acting like Batman. The rumour Dennis spread was that the reason they didn't see eye-to-eye was that Edo preferred DC heroes whilst Kaito preferred Marvel. Crow acknowledged it as a possibly whilst Asuka doubted that. Not that they had different preferences for superheroes, but that Kaito would frame a grudge around something so completely stupid.

Edo on the other hand…

"Well, if you're all quite done making a fuss about nothing, you can all get out of my Battle Chamber" Jack informed them.

Edo almost corrected that to a ' _our_ Battle Chamber', but he was already on thin ice and he didn't want to encourage Kaito to put any more cracks in it.

Washing an icy cold look over Jack, Kaito eventually stalked out of the Chamber in a way that could only be described by the words 'do literally anything and I'll be back'. Jack took Kaito's departure as a sign that he could leave, probably to go heal up his Pokémon. There was an audible sigh of relief once the two had gone.

"I can't believe we got out of that alive" Edo remarked in a breathless voice.

"That certainly could've gone worse" Asuka admitted.

Satisfied the world wasn't going to end in the next few minutes, Crow seemed happy enough to get the hell out of dodge. "Well, now that's all taken care of, I'm gonna get some lunch and clean up my factory. Anyone need me, you know where I am. See ya this evening, I guess."

Asuka and Edo also decided to vacate the Battle Chamber, like the tension that had been left hanging in the air would snap and kill them both if you lingered too long.

"I can't believe we got out of that alive" Edo again remarked.

"Yes, you already mentioned" Asuka pointed out.

Edo's eyes were still wide as he repeated what could only be described as his mantra again. "I can't believe we got—"

"—got out of that alive, yeah, I know" Asuka finished for him "It's a miracle Kaito didn't start shooting Hyper Beams at our heads again."

Edo shuddered involuntarily. What had happened to the time when _he_ was the scarier person at the Battle Frontier? How did some punk kid from Canalave stroll in and increased the staff turnover rate tenfold within days?

"Hey, where's Dennis?" Asuka suddenly realised someone was missing.

"Who?" Edo was so busy pondering he missed the question.

"Dennis Macfield – the Arcade Star" Asuka clarified "I haven't seen him at all."

"Maybe Kaito snapped and killed him already" Edo suggested, not entirely joking.

"I mean, his facility has such a dangerous layout – you don't think he got hurt in all the psychic shocks, do you?" Asuka asked him, looking increasingly alarmed as she spoke.

Edo nodded thoughtfully. "Someone should probably go check on him."

The two stared at each other in silence in the middle of the Battle Castle's foyer.

"Well, maybe not one of _us_."

"I mean, I've got to check the Hall to see what repairs need doing."

"And I have to open the Castle again before lunch ends."

"I mean, he's got lots of staff there – one of them would surely raise the alarm if something was wrong."

"Exactly, that's what staff are for."

"As a Valet, aren't you technically staff?"

"…"

"…"

"You know, being Castle Valet _used_ to be a big deal when I first got here."

* * *

Somehow, Kaito had managed to have an astronomically bad day without the day even being halfway through.

The whole 'Jack's a freaking idiot' thing took half an hour to complete, but his hunger for lunch had been sapped right out of him as Kaito reclined his office seat back, trying to will away the awful headache buzzing around his brain.

This job wasn't worth it. It couldn't be, babysitting these children. Forget waiting for Sawatari to get the boot, maybe he should quit and wait the time until the League position opened out as an unemployed bum. At least he could spend more time with Haruto then, and he could bug Shun in person rather than through text messages. It wasn't like the Tenjo family was short on money or anything. Kaito _needed_ a break. No wonder the previous Tower Tycoon had cracked under the pressure, and that guy hadn't even lasted eighteen months.

Thoughts of temporary retirement were distracted by what appeared to be confirmation that there was something alive inside his office.

Something at the far end of the room was buzzing, rustling the leaves of another one of Asuka's potted plants. Worried a Beedril had somehow snuck into his office, Kaito headed over to investigate, only to discover his Xtransceiver had landed in the centre of said plant and had apparently received a new message. Kaito nearly left it where it was – he didn't particularly want to talk to Shun after the mocking he'd received before he left the Tower, but he paused when he saw the ID on the screen.

Haruto.

 **Nii-san, are you okay? Apparently there's been a lot of seismic activity detected at the Battle Frontier and Reiji's worried.**

Kaito was about to send a reply that told Haruto everything was okay and he had the situation under control, no need to worry and Reiji needed to mind his own business, when he received another message.

 **Also, Reiji and Shun are taking Reira to see the Power Rangers movie tonight. Can we go too, Nii-san?**

Automatically Kaito felt his expression soften. An evening at the movies with Haruto? Had his little brother just guessed he was having a bad day and needed cheering up or was it just a happy coincidence. Regardless, Kaito was pleased with the idea.

He strode over towards the door, opening it with the intention to find a member of senior staff. To his surprise, when he opened it, the green beret-wearing attendant from before was on the other side, her fist raised to knock on it.

"Ah, good" he remarked "Tell everyone we're closing up early. Everyone better be out of here before 3:30."

The attendant stared up at Kaito in shock. What was she staring at? Was he smiling. Kaito schooled his feature into an unimpressed frown just to make sure he wasn't.

"But, sir—"

"3:30. On the dot. Got it?"

The attendant looked ready to argue, but then lost her backbone again and nodded. "Yes sir. Should I informed the other Frontier Brains?"

Kaito considered the idea was exactly 0.125 seconds. "No. We'll see how observant they are. Or afraid of me. Whichever."

Satisfied, he slammed the door in her face. He wasn't being rude – but he had three hours before he could leave to pick Haruto up, and another hundred rounds of Pong on his computer sounded pretty good right now.

Wasn't like there was anything _productive_ to do.


	3. Happy Families

**So, this little joke of a one-shot now has a third part. I know I said if I'd choose to continue this I'd change the status to 'Incomplete', but I'm going to wait until after VRains airs. If I find I want to write for that show, I'll jump over to that fandom. If I find I don't want to, I'll continue this and change the status.**

 **With that cleared up, enjoy this segment written to explain the Stats Trainers and also what a certain under-used duo are doing in this universe.**

* * *

"I wish we could have more days like this. You know, sunny and warm? I feels so nice to have the sun on your back."

"You live in Veilstone where there's a constant raincloud over your head. If you want sun, you go to Sunnyshore."

Yuya and Reiji had a tradition. Once every three months, the Jubilife Radio Tower would request the champion of the region to go on air and talk about league, challengers, the complexities of being champion and so on – anything that would draw in more listeners to their frequency. Reiji himself though wasn't the greatest public speaker. He was just…too boring to listen to for any extended length of time. The producers over at the radio tower had suggested he bring a friend along to help, but Reira and Gongenzaka were too quiet, Shun kept swinging between outrage and apathy too quickly for Reiji to keep up and Sawatari just talked about himself the whole time (admittedly, that was been one of the most well-received segments of the radio show all year, which troubled Reiji a fair amount).

Desperate and running out of people he knew, Reiji had turned to Yuya. It was a good choice. Yuya had all of Sawatari's showmanship without the arrogance. He paused for Reiji to interject at frequent intervals. He kept a lively and pleasant atmosphere in the recording room. The radio producers loved him. Now the segment was labelled 'Gym Leader and Champion Time' and if they got more than 400 listeners, the duo would sing for them at the end of the segment (Reiji had been mortified at the idea at first, but had grown increasingly comfortable with it over time) which would frequently cause it to overrun – especially that time Yuya insisted on singing the Twelve Days of Christmas which rapidly turned into the Twenty-Five Days of Christmas.

After every broadcast, the pair would head down the street to a fifties-style diner that made great food and just hung out for a bit. It may seem a little unusual, a gym leader having dinner with a champion so regularly, but Yuya had never been one for diplomacy anyhow.

"Yeah, that's one thing I miss more than anything in Veilstone – the sun" Yuya sighed, the straw of his milkshake halfway to his mouth "I mean, even if it's not raining it's all clouded over."

"By Shuin'in's complaints, you seem to be spending more time in Hearthome than Veilstone anyhow" Reiji pointed out.

Yuya's cheeks coloured slightly as he glanced towards the counter to see if their lunch was ready yet. "He exaggerates. That's my dad's old gym – I couldn't leave it for that long."

"Even if you got to live in the sun for once?" Reiji suggested.

"You live underground, what are you talking about?" Yuya pointed out with a cheeky grin.

The guy had a point. The living quarters for the elite four and champion were in a series of connected bunkers below Lily of the Valley Island. They were cosy, but not exactly friendly to natural light.

"You may have a point" Reiji admitted "I can live with it though. I take strolls around the Valor Lakefront sometimes."

"Ah, the perks of being champion" Yuya sighed dramatically "Not actually having to work for a living. We gym leaders are the slaves of the trainers of this region. Worked to the bone we are."

"I can finally see it now" Reiji said like he'd had some epiphany right before Yuya's eyes.

"What?" Yuya asked, propping his chin up on his knuckles.

"That you clearly went to school with Sawatari" Reiji told him "I thought I was just a baseless rumour."

Yuya reached over to knock Reiji on the shoulder in jest, but before he could get there, two voice called out in unison:

"Hey guys! You saved some lunch for us?"

Yuya froze, unable to comprehend what he was hearing. It couldn't be true, it just couldn't.

With a gulp of worry, he turned to look over his shoulder towards the diner's entrance.

"Hey little bro!" a familiar figure with white and green hair called from the other end of the diner, a figure clad in pink and purple and carrying a bundle in her arms following him "Long time no see!"

Reiji's head made impact with the table.

* * *

Though it wasn't a well known fact, Sayaka had actually grown up in Oreburgh City, the best friend of the city's latest gym leader Ruri Kurosaki. That meant Sayaka had gotten to know Ruri's best friend and brother pretty well as well. So when she'd baked a few too many blueberry muffins that morning, she easily recalled which of the Oreburgh trio was a big fan of blueberry muffins and immediately headed towards Canalave before the muffins could get cold.

Of course, maybe trying to reach Yuto in the Canalave gym during open hours was a bad idea. She'd been stopped by no less than four trainers demanding battles before she could ascend to the next floor, and although she'd wiped them all out with her Chansey (the ghost-type trainers couldn't touch it after all) it was getting pretty tiresome.

As she approached the final floor before Yuto's podium, Sayaka was pretty sick of gym trainers. She let out an irritated sigh as she saw a figure loom out of the darkness, expecting it to be another trainer. But instead, she was surprised to see the Sunnyshore gym leader, staring over the edge of the platform with a look of irritation.

Sayaka didn't know Yuri at all, but Allen did, and he had nothing to say about the man that Sayaka would repeat to his face, so she intended to sneak around him, doing everything possible not to disturb his brooding.

Of course, since when did any of her plans ever going accordingly?

"YURIIIIII!"

Before she could blink, a wild Pastoria Gym Leader came racing up behind her, knocking her out of the way in his rush to get to Yuri, grounding to a halt before he accidently pushed him over the edge of the platform. Sayaka herself nearly fell to her demise, only being saved by her quick-thinking Chansey using Psychic.

"What are you doing here?" Yuri asked, glancing over his fellow gym leader with a sharp glare.

"Yuri! I didn't know you'd be here too!" Yugo excitedly proclaimed, waving his arms (with one hand clutching a letter tightly) in the air with joy "I thought I would only be Yuto."

"Speaking of Yuto" Yuri halted Yugo before he could any further (or poke someone's eye out) "I need a favour. Can you help me settle something?"

Yugo stared at the Sunnyshore Gym Leader in shock. "You…You need my help."

"Yes" Yuri admitted.

"... _My_ help?"

"Yes Yugo, your help" Yuri sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose "Can you stand on the edge of the platform here?"

"Ok…" Yugo still appeared baffled as he stood next to Yugo, the toes of his boots hanging off the edge of the five-storey drop "So…what do you want—AHHHHHH!"

Sayaka watched in shock and horror as Yuri gripped Yugo's riding suit tightly and jumped, hence dragging Yugo over the edge with him. She rushed over to see if she could do something, but by the time she got there, she couldn't even see them through the darkness below.

Trembling, Sayaka was paralysed with fear over what to do. What was she supposed to say to Yuto or the police? That it was a murder? Double suicide? Kamikaze strike? What if they didn't believe her and she ended up in jail for double murder?

Before Sayaka could start panicking over how a demure girl like her would manage in jail, she was relieved to see Yugo and Yuri rising through the air, surrounded by a purple glow as they were deposited at the end of the platform next to the elevator.

"There" Yuri declared, a little breathless "See anything?"

"WHY?!" Yugo all but screamed, his face the picture of horror "WHY DID YOU KILL ME?!"

"You're not dead, Yugo, and I wasn't trying to kill you – I would've succeed if I truly wanted to" Yuri told him with a scowl "Now, did you see anything?"

"ONLY MY LIFE FLASHING BEFORE MY EYES!" Yugo shrieked, covering his eyes as he started to actually cry, his hands empty now "And you made me lose my letter for Yuto! Rin's gonna kill me! For real this time, not just fake it like you!"

"Damn" Yuri swore "No Pokémon? No traps? No wires? Nothing?"

"What were you doing?" Yugo sobbed "Trying to see me pee my pants? Because I think you succeeded."

Yuri wrinkled his nose with disgust, but otherwise ignored the second part of Yugo's blubbering. "I'm trying to work out how this gym works. Every time you fall or jump off, you just get levitated back to the start of whatever floor you were on. I just can't work out why. I haven't seen any Pokémon using Psychic or Levitate or anything like that. I haven't felt any traps or wires. It's absolutely maddening."

Yugo stared at Yuri in wonder, mirroring Sayaka's expression. "How many times have you thrown yourself off this thing trying to work this out?"

"Once on the first floor to check it worked, and then forty-seven times up here" Yuri admitted "Well, forty-eight with you now."

Yugo whistled in appreciation. "Have you not, like, thought of asking Yuto how it worked?"

Yuri shot a glare in Yugo's direction, not at all an uncommon sight, but apparently it wasn't for Yugo this time, but Yuto. "Because I already tried that. The idiot just said to 'To look for the answer in my heart' or some crap. Clearly whatever it is, it's illegal. _My_ gym's barely legal and it's way less complicated than this one."

"I dunno, man" Yugo shrugged "Maybe it's magic."

Yuri scoffed. "Magic is about as real as that myth about some 'Battle Beast' living in the Wayward Cave under the Cycling Road. And Yuto certainly doesn't have any."

Yugo frowned. "Battle beasts?"

Yuri stared at him like he was stupid or something. "Magic."

"Ohhhh!" Yugo remarked, suddenly gasping and feeling around his jacket "I just remembered! I have one for you too!"

"You have a what for me?" Yuri frowned, only to get his question answer when an envelope was thrust all but literally into his face.

"An invitation!" Yugo proclaimed with a proud smile.

Sayaka wondered if she was going to get an invitation if Yugo noticed her. Maybe it was a gym leader-only thing.

"An invitation to what?" Yuri asked cautiously, not sure he was prepared for the answer as he ducked away from the dangerous envelope.

"My wedding!" Yugo declared "I'm getting married!"

Silence reigned over the Canalave Gym.

Sayaka knew there was a reason she lived in the middle of Eterna Forest where no one could disturb her.

"What?"

* * *

"Aren't you heading home soon?"

Kaito, halfway through the forty-seventh round of Space Invaders, was startled enough by the interruption that his little icon got wiped out. He glared over at the doorways, expecting to see one of the tower's attendants, but was surprised to see Battle Factory Head Crow Hogan there instead.

"Why?" he asked "It's not even lunchtime."

"We're having a half day, remember" Crow pointed out "I'd about to take off."

"Who authorised that?" Kaito frowned. He certainly didn't.

"Me" Crow told him "I appealed to the others and we took a vote."

Kaito was about to overrule that vote when Crow continued.

"It's fathers' day" he added "I'm going to head home and spend some time with the kids."

Oh yeah, Kaito had forgotten about that. Probably because Crow was the only father out of the six of them, and the only one to live outside the Battle Zone. He instead lived in Sunnyshore with his three kid and that guy (his roommate? Husband? Boyfriend? Kaito really should remember this stuff about his colleagues) Shinji, who spent more time than was really necessary around Route 224, chasing the dream of getting a Shaymin some day.

Kaito wasn't mean enough to begrudge him. "Sure, why not? I'm not going to stop you. Doesn't mean the others can take off – they're not fathers."

"But they all have fathers" Crow pointed out "Well, except for Edo, but he has a step-father, I guess." He leaned against Kaito's doorway, looking deep in thought. "Say, don't you want to spend today with your father? I mean, I think he's still alive."

 _Kaito_ wasn't sure if the guy was still alive. Dr Faker had been living like a hermit on Iron Island for years. Kaito was 90% sure the guy didn't have a working toilet or stove and _fished_ for food, cooking it over an open fire.

"I don't have any interest in seeing him" Kaito grunted.

"Doesn't Haruto?" Crow asked "Seems more his thing than yours anyway."

Kaito hadn't thought about that. Haruto hadn't seen his father since he was an infant. He'd never brought up his father and neither had Kaito. I just didn't seem like an important deal to them.

"Look, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life" Crow told the Tower Tycoon "But I think one day out of the year to see your old man wouldn't kill you. Haruto may even enjoy himself. Heck, you might too."

Kaito tried to calculate how visiting his father could possibly work and what the likely outcome was going to be. He couldn't see a lot of positives coming out.

"Anyway, I'm gonna take off now" Crow told him, standing up straight again "Just, thing about it, ok? Guy raised you, didn't he? He may deserve just a little gratitude for that."

The Factory Head left Kaito's line of sight, leaving the Tower Tycoon with a lot to think about.

"I'm gonna regret this" he mumbled as he reached for his Xtransceiver, his finger itching for Haruto's number on speed dial.

* * *

"You're doing what?" Allen stared at the gym leader in disbelief.

"I'm getting married" Rin told him "Next month. That's why I'm giving you an invitation."

"Right" Allen muttered, staring at the envelope in his hand "You inviting the whole region or something?"

"Jack introduced you to Yugo" Rin explained "Now he wants you to be there. Sayaka and the others are coming too."

"So, everyone" Allen confirmed. He'd met Yugo once, when he and Jack had come to investigate rumours of a rare electric-type in the area of the Survival Zone. The rumours were false, of course, just an attempt to drum up some tourism for the area which had declined in the wake of several recent small eruptions from Stark Mountain. If Yugo was inviting all the people he had only met one, then this was going to be one hell of a long list.

"I've already cut it down twice" Rin remarked like she had read his thoughts "You're still on since you're friends with Sayaka and Ruri."

Oh yeah, Sayaka and Ruri. The Oreburgh girls who had visited his grandfather's home on a journey around the Battle Zone to see Kaito. They were nice girls, even if Ruri's brother could be a tend defensive. It would be good to catch up with everyone.

"Why are you holding it?" Allen asked "Hearthome? More central than Pastoria or Snowpoint."

"We're looking at the Pokémon Mansion" Rin told him.

Allen whistled, his eyes wide at the long journey. "I'll have to get Jack or Kaito to fly me in – that would take days by road. Couldn't you pick somewhere that didn't involve traipsing across the entire region?"

"Yugo wanted to hold it in Jubilife – it's your fault for living in such an isolated corner of the region without a flying-type" Rin pointed out, surveying the run-down buildings and much hardier people that made up the Survival Zone. She couldn't imagine living here, in the shadow of Stark Mountain where the heat from the lava was present in the air even now.

"I don't _need_ one usually" Allen told her "I rarely leave the island. I have to watch the volcano, you know."

"I don't think your presence is going to stop it from erupting" Rin commented with a frown.

Allen just looked up at her with a knowing grin. "That's not the reason I'm watching it."

"Hey Allen!" an older man called over to them "We need more firewood!"

"Just a minute!" Allen called to him before talking to Rin again "Anyways, how's this going to work? You both live on opposite sides of the region."

"We're in talks with Yuri about he and I switching gyms" Rin explained "Then I'll live in Pastoria and commute to Sunnyshore when I'm needed. Yuya manages it all the time, and Sunnyshore's not that far by air."

"Why Pastoria?" Allen asked "Wouldn't raising a family in Sunnyshore be better? Better schooling and everything."

Rin's cheeks flushed red for a second at the word 'family' but she quickly recovered. "Maybe, but Pastoria's my home since I was a little girl. Both me and Yugo. It may not be much when compared to Sunnyshore, but it's home. It's where I'd want to raise a family. Like this place." She gestured to the town around them. "It's a dump, barely hanging on. But you stay here, because it's home."

Allen appeared satisfied by this response. "Well, one more thing then."

"What is this, twenty questions?" Rin asked impatiently.

"Who proposed?" Allen asked, ignoring Rin's question.

"Him, why?" Rin frowned.

Allen swore and snapped his fingers. "Oh come on! Another bet lost to Ruri. Great."

"You were betting on who would propose?" Rin was not impressed at all "That's extremely rude, you know. And for you to—is that Team Galactic?"

Allen looked over his shoulder to see where Rin was staring, to be met with the sight of blue bowl cuts trying to sneak into the volcano without being noticed.

"Those guys again" Allen groaned "They're why I can't leave."

"They live here?" Rin commented with wide eyes.

"Something like that" Allen explained "They're after Heatran – want to use it to resurrect Team Galactic or carry out nefarious deeds or something. I gave it to Jack for safekeeping ages ago, but they don't know that, so they keep sneaking in. I have to go and chase them out, or they're upset all the wide Pokémon. We have several rare ones living up here, you know."

"Of course" Rin nodded "I'll let you sort them out then."

"Alright" Allen began to run off "I'll see you next month I guess."

Rin watched the boy run across the town towards the cave, summoning a Claydol from a Pokémon and barking instructions to it. He had a look on his face that reminded her so much of Yugo. Rin cupped her hands around her mouth.

"Hey Allen!" she called after him "Kick their asses for me!"

"I don't need your permission to do that!"

* * *

Reiji and Yuya could do nothing but stare in horror as the two siblings slid into the booth next to them, grinning like they'd brought a miracle to their little siblings' lives.

"Hey, champ" Zarc grinned, throwing an arm around Yuya and a friendly smile at Reiji "How's life at the top going?"

Yuya stared between Zarc and the second intruder and shock. Reiji's head was still on the table.

"Reiji" Ray tried to coax her brother's head up by shaking his shoulder gently "Aren't you a little happy to see us?"

Reiji just make some garbled sounds, muffled by the table.

"We heard you on the radio" Ray told them "You have a beautiful singing voice, Yuya."

"You're here" Yuya finally managed.

"Yup" Zarc grinned, ruffling his little brother's hair.

"In Sinnoh."

"Yup."

"In Jubilife City."

"Yup."

"In my favourite diner."

"Yup."

"In my booth."

Zarc bopped a finger on the tip of Yuya's nose. "Ding ding ding! We have a winner!"

"I have so many questions."

Zarc leaned back in his seat, eyebrow raised in challenge. "Ask away."

"For starters, WHAT IS THAT?!"

Yuya pointed dramatically at the bundle in Ray's arms that started to cry at Yuya's sudden yell.

Reiji startled upright, staring at Ray in disbelief.

"Well clearly it's a baby, Little Bro" Zarc told him in his 'I'm the big brother and I'm cleverer than you' voice.

"Who's baby?" Yuya had to ask, but he had a sneaking suspicion as to whose it was "Did you just pick it up? Abduct it? Is the International Police going to rush the doors any minute now?"

Zarc laughed. "It's mine."

"Ours" Ray corrected him.

Zarc frowned at her "Ray, come on."

"I was there for its conception too" Ray pointed out, occasionally hushing at the baby to keep it from crying loudly enough to disturb the rest of the patrons of the diner "Last I checked it was me who—"

"Okay! I totally don't need to hear anymore!" Yuya cut her off "Where have you even been? I thought you were in Unova breaking up some evil cult?"

"Nah, that was, like, a year ago" Zarc told him, waving his hand dismissively "We've been to Kalos and Alola since then. You should've seen the psycho we met there – she puts a whole new meaning to Crazy Lady."

The only possible job title one could ever give Zarc Sakaki and Ray Akaba was 'Professional Bad-Guy Butt Kicker". Yuya wasn't sure how they made a living off it, except maybe in prize money, but they travelled around the world, seemingly 'on holiday', and just waited for an evil cult or mafia group or eco-terrorists to show up so that they could kick their butts. It left Yuya wondering what his brother and Ray had said when they stood up at the front of the class to declare their future careers would be in primary school. Mercenaries maybe?

"You let her fight a crazy lady while you had a baby with you?" Yuya frowned at his brother in disapproval. He still couldn't quite process that Ray had gave birth to the kid, let alone that Zarc was responsible for the tyke.

"Well the kid hadn't been born by that point" Zarc shrugged, like that made it all better.

"That doesn't make it better!" Yuya protested.

"You let my pregnant sister face off against another one of your evil cults?" Reiji finally found his voice, though it had now turned low and dangerous in tone.

"Hello, I'm right here" Ray frowned in disapproval "I can make my own decisions without the men in my life getting their hair in knots, thank you."

Reiji bowed his head in shame, apologising quietly.

"To be fair, we didn't know she was pregnant until we got back from that other dimension" Zarc pointed out.

Another dimension. Zarc was the only person in history, besides Ray, who could say that casually say that without anyone thinking he was lying or crazy.

"The girl we went with suggested we go to a doctor, check for side effects" Zarc explained "And suddenly he tells us BOOM! Baby."

"I just don't understand how we didn't notice until more than six months had passed" Ray frowned in thought.

"I just thought it was all those Masaladas" Zarc admitted, waving off the glare Ray shot him at that.

"Anyway, we were going to call you, but the whole portal thing caused a region-wide blackout" Ray explained "So we decided to help catch the rest of the Ultra Beasts with the International Police. And by the time it all got sorted out I was far enough long that we thought we may as well wait it out and make it a big surprise."

"And then there was the hurricane" Zarc added "And that knocked out the power. Again."

"I ended up giving birth in a hut with no power or water" Ray declared, looking round of the fact despite the fact she lived in a modern world where hospitals were no longer a luxury and there was no need for such unnecessary archaic practices.

"And that's how we got Reira" Zarc finished the extraordinary story "And now, two months later, we're here. Oh, and we met Red and Blue. Or Green. The Viridian gym leader guy. Not sure when that happened. I may have been drunk."

"You were" Ray confirmed "Plastered."

"You named him after Reira?" Reiji raised an eyebrow at the baby who had fallen asleep again.

"Sorry Reiji, but he was so cute, and you're not exactly the embodiment of cute" Ray told in his mother's arms again "I wanted to name him after someone special to me, so that only left you and Reira and—"

"We could've called him—"

"We were not calling him Zarc Jr" Ray cut her husband off before he could continue "Yuya and Yushou were nice, but they weren't quite as personal. And Leo was out."

"I'm sure he would've been overjoyed" Reiji frowned.

"For his namesake to be 'Sakaki Spawn'?" Ray looked at him knowingly.

Reiji didn't say anything, but he did nod steadily in agreement with her point. Their dad had to be convinced with nothing short of bribery to turn up for the wedding. Reiji wasn't sure if he would put aside his grudge with the Sakakis long enough to love his grandchild or not.

"Dad's just going to have to deal with it" Ray declared, like she'd read Reiji's mind "I'm grown adult, I'm married and I can make my own decisions. I love this baby and I love Zarc, and if Dad wants me and Reira in his life, he's just going to have to accept both."

It was quite the impressive speech. Reiji and Yuya stared at her in appreciation. Zarc kept pointing at her and mouthing to passing customers and staff 'That's my girl!'.

"So…er, I take you're going to be making some changes after this?" Yuya guessed "Like, staying in one region, maybe?"

"We think so" Ray nodded "Not sure where yet. Alola was nice."

"It's far" Zarc pointed out "Johto's closer if you want to see your brothers."

Ray shot him a smug look. "Aw, you'd miss you family, wouldn't you?"

"No!" Zarc spluttered, losing his legendary cool for a second there "I'm thinking of you. All you would talk about in the ferry back as how you couldn't wait to see your family again."

"Maybe you could stay in Sinnoh?" Yuya suggested, receiving a thoughtful look from both parents.

"Any idea where you'd like to settle down if you did stay?" Reiji asked "Twinleaf?"

Both Zarc and Ray pulled faces of disapproval.

"Arceus, no" Ray groaned "That's practically Dad's back garden."

"You know, I could talk to Allen" Yuya suggested "He might know some places for sale at the Survival Zone or Resort Area. They're both pretty close to Lily of the Valley Island and Veilstone. And it's about as far from Twinleaf as you can get without leaving the region. You'd have your own space while still being close to family."

Zarc and Ray looked at each other, a silent conversation playing out between them. Yuya was a little jealous – he hoped he and Yuzu were able to do that someday, just instinctively know what the other was thinking by a single glance.

"We'll have to think about it" Ray told him with an air of thought about her "Honestly, settling down for a bit hadn't even crossed out minds until we got here."

"Our lives are pretty crazy" Zarc admitted "Not exactly baby-raising environment."

"Of course, we won't be giving it up forever" Ray declared "Just until Reira's old enough to kick butt beside us."

Zarc wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "He'd gonna be an awesome little butt-kicker. Just like his parents. His dad especially."

Ray rolled her eyes, which just so happened to land on the clock hanging from the ceiling of the diner.

"Um…Zarc?" she asked "What time were we supposed to meet your mum in Canalave again?"

"12:15, why?"

Zarc glanced over at the clock and all the colour drained from his cheeks.

12:28.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME!" Zarc yelped, jumping out of his seat "We have to go now!"

"I told you to watch the time!" Ray responded, scooping up baby Reira before Yuya could even ask to hold his new nephew.

"You're the one who insisted on coming to see her brother!" Zarc complained, already striding towards the exit.

"Because you were supposed to be watching the time!" Ray protested, hurrying after her.

"Well maybe if you weren't such a—!"

The door slammed behind them, their voices still resonating from the street outside. Gone without a word of goodbye.

"Well you can't say it wasn't out of character for them" Yuya pointed out.

"I will be astonished if they settle down" Reiji stated "I don't think even a baby will stop them. Heck, they'll probably bring disaster right to this region. That poor child."

"It'll be nice having them around though" Yuya pointed out.

"Whenever Zarc visits, all you do is quarrel with him" Reiji frowned "Doesn't exactly sound like someone you'd want close."

"All siblings bicker – even Shun and Ruri fall out occasionally" Yuya shrugged "But we're family. I still want to see him and know how he's doing from day to day."

Reiji appeared thoughtful. "I guess my family just isn't as close as yours."

"Well, you have Little Reira now" Yuya suggested "That might bring you closer together. Babies tend to do that." A look of shocked flashed across his face for a second. "Whoa! I gotta tell Yuzu! You should totally call Reira as well! Big Reira that is – not the baby one. I'll just be outside, knock on the window if my burger comes!"

He jumped out of his seat, scrambling to grab his Xtransceiver as he rushed from the diner. Reiji smiled as he saw the family resemblance to Zarc for a moment.

With a sigh, he also reached for his Xtransceiver. He may not be close to his family, but certainly didn't might Yuya being a part of it either.


	4. Snapshots

**I may have spent all night writing this, but AlissonJohns requested some Fruitshipping and inspiration struck.**

 **Flokingaround was the one to come up with Yuto and the Kurosaki siblings' backstory. And in case you haven't read the previous chapter, Zarc is Yuya's older brother. He's married to Ray and they have a son called Reira.**

* * *

" _Married_?"

"Apparently."

"I was out with Reiji for one day and Yugo and Rin are getting _married_?"

"Well, with any luck it'll go over smoother than Zarc and Ray's wedding."

"Don't bring that up, please. I don't think I've recovered yet."

Yuzu smiled as she placed a coffee in front of Yuya at the kitchen table, sitting opposite him with one of her own. She'd been living in a small house on the eastern outskirts of Hearthome City ever since she took over the gym there, however in recent months, it felt like it had been getting smaller. She wasn't sure when Yuya had moved in, but half of her dresser was designated for his clothes, his toothbrush sat next to hers in the bathroom and she couldn't remember a night he hadn't spent by her side, unless he was too tired from taking gym challenges to make the journey to her home so she'd travel up to his rarely-used flat in Veilstone instead.

"Speaking of Zarc and Ray, I can't believe they're having a baby" Yuzu commented "I nearly dropped the Xtransceiver when I realised what you were saying."

"They're not _having_ a baby – it's already been born" Yuya told her "I fear for the poor little guy."

"Aww, surely they'd not that bad" Yuzu almost laughed "They may be kinda young but that doesn't mean they'll be bad parents."

"I guess unpredictability just runs in my family" Yuya remarked "My parents were still teenagers when they had Zarc."

"My dad wasn't much older" Yuzu pointed out "He was still competing professionally when I was born. He used to take me all around the world with him."

"Good job he did" Yuya recalled with a smile on his face "That's how we met."

* * *

 _Hoenn was a nice region, in Yuzu's opinion. She found it was nicer than Kanto or Johto and the people we also nicer, but it was also unbelievably hot. So hot that she found that she couldn't sit in the stands with the sun beating down on her head any longer. Her dad wasn't going to be competing for a while, for she decided to walk over to the fountain in the main lobby – the one with the Goldeen blowing water in the air._

 _Glancing around the lobby, she listened to all the accents she could hear. Everyone had reverted to Basic – the language that everyone in the contest circuit used to communicate – but she could hear accents from everywhere under the sun. Kalosian and Unovan stuck out the most, being the most distinctive. Kantonese and Johtoan sounded similar, but people from Johto tended to talk slower than their Kantonese counterparts, so she could pick them apart if she listened hard enough. She was sure she even heard an Alolan voice somewhere in the crowd._

 _And then, Sinnohian._

 _Yuzu was surprised. Heavy snowfall in her home region meant that any Sinnohians here had to have travelled to Mauville from another region, which meant that they were a part of the contest circuit. It couldn't be a competitor – they would all be gathered in their changing rooms. So it had to be a family member._

 _Searching the room, she tried to find the source of the voice. Glancing around, her eyes finally fell on a boy about her age with green and red hair, talking excitedly to an older boy with white and green hair. After a while, the older boy turned away to talk to a very pretty blonde woman, presumably his mother, leaving the smaller boy to look around the room aimlessly. His eyes met Yuzu's, and when he realised she was staring at him, he wandered over to her._

 _"_ _Hi!" he greeted her "Do you wanna battle?"_

 _Yuzu's frowned. "You're not old enough to be a trainer."_

 _The boy looked sheepish. "Nah, my dad just gave me this Pokémon to look after, see?"_

 _He unclipped a Pokéball from his belt (something Yuzu hadn't noticed before) and released a small blue and grey Pokémon from it. The Pokémon glanced around the room, before clinging onto the boy's leg._

 _Yuzu's eyes grew wide. "Is this a Bagon?"_

 _"_ _Yeah!" the boy declared proudly, picking up the Bagon and petting it on the head "Dad says when it grows up, it's gonna be a big strong Salamance."_

 _"_ _Whoa!" Yuzu remarked, staring at the boy and his Pokémon "Dad says I have to wait until I'm a trainer to get a Pokémon. And that's, like, ages away."_

 _"_ _I'd go totally crazy if I had to wait until I was ten to get a Pokémon" the boy commented, sitting down on the lip of the fountain next to her, the Bagon on his lap. "How old are you anyway?"_

 _"_ _I'm five" Yuzu told him._

 _"_ _Me too!" the boy grinned "I'm here with my mum and dad and my big brother."_

 _"_ _I don't have a brother" Yuzu told him "I'm here with my dad. He's competing in the next round. He says he's gonna win this time but he says that every time and he doesn't always win."_

 _"_ _My dad too!" the boy grinned even wider "My mum's a battler though. She could've been a gym leader but she decided to be a teacher instead. Zarc says he gonna be just like her."_

 _"_ _Is that your mum?" Yuzu asked, looking at the blonde woman still talking to the older boy "She's really pretty."_

 _"_ _Thanks!" Yuya grinned "Is your mum here too?"_

 _"_ _Nah, Dad says she doesn't like travelling" Yuzu told her "She hasn't come with us since she met my step-dad."_

 _"_ _That's too bad" the boy remarked "Hey, you're from Sinnoh, right? So you must think it's really hot too?"_

 _"_ _Yeah?" Yuzu stared at him weirdly._

 _"_ _So we should get ice cream!" the boy jumped to his feet, holding his Bagon with one arm "Come on!"_

 _He grabbed her hand and dragged her to her feet too, encouraging her to walk across the lobby with him._

 _"_ _You never told me your name" Yuzu realised._

 _"_ _Oh! I'm Yuya!" the boy told her._

 _Yuzu smiled back at him. "I'm Yuzu. Nice to meet you."_

* * *

"And in end, neither of our dads ended up winning" Yuya realised.

"Yeah, but they did meet because of us" Yuzu pointed out "And that's what lead to them starting up the contestant school in Veilstone."

"And then my dad took over the gym there" Yuya remembered "I never did work out why he did that."

"Maybe he missed the competition" Yuzu suggested "Just like us – we became gym leaders after we left the contest circuit."

"Yeah, but I took over my dad's gym" Yuya pointed "You became gym leader because you have a great right-hook."

Yuzu blushed bright red, but he wasn't exactly lying.

* * *

 _Reiji glared down at the young calling herself Commander Mars, her last Pokémon finally defeated. Now he was clear to proceed to reach Spear Pillar. Or at least he would be if the infuriating woman got out of his way already. He really didn't want to use his Aegislash to remove her forcefully._

 _"_ _You may have defeated me, Champion" Mars started monologing and Reiji braced himself to be there for a while "But make no mistake. Master Cyrus will not be stopped so easily. He's going to—"_

 _Halfway through the monologue, Mars was interrupted by a fist that sailed past Reiji and struck the Galactic Commander in the face, knocking her out cold with the force of it._

 _"_ _You talk too much" a female voice stated as a person dressed in pink strode past him "I just wanna get to the top of the mountain, Arceus."_

 _A Ribombee hovering over the girl's shoulder notice him and stared pulling on its trainer's hair. The girl, who appeared to be a few years younger than Reiji, turned around and stared at him with wide blue eyes._

 _"_ _Mr Champion!" she realised "I'm sorry about that, but she was getting really annoying. I was in Hearthome and I saw all the light in the sky and realised that couldn't be good. So I started making my way up here."_

 _Reiji just stared at the girl, dumfounded._

 _"_ _Hey, there's bound to be a bunch of grunts up there, right?" the girl kept going "I'll go ahead and take them all out so you can reach the bad guy. Don't worry – I won't punch them unless they start monologuing."_

 _Reiji just stared at her, not agreeing nor disagreeing. He was still a little in shock._

 _"_ _Thank you!" the girl told him as if he'd spoken, then being distracted by her Xtransceiver ringing "I'll go ahead now. I can talk and battle at the same time."_

 _The girl and her Ribombee went running into the next series of Mt Coronet's caves, talking into the Xtransceiver as she ran. Reiji could still hear her voice despite not seeing her._

 _"_ _There you are, Yuya, I though you'd died or something!...I'm at Mt Coronet…Are you blind?! The sky's pulsating blue and purple!...Go to the window!...Blue and pink, whatever, something's wrong and Team Galactic are everywhere!...No you need to get your butt to the Galactic Building you've let spout up in your city and kick their arses! The last thing we need is these guys getting any backup!...Fine, Sawatari can go too just get your dragon-tamer butt down there already!"_

 _As the girl's voice faded into the background, Aegislash started chuckling._

 _Reiji had to agree with the sentiment. "I agree, that was impressive."_

* * *

Yuzu groaned, putting her head in her hands. "I can't believe he used that as a reason to throw a gym at me. I meant, I punched a woman in the face. That's no exactly great role-model material."

"Hey, the guy appointed Yuri as a gym leader" Yuya pointed out "Clearly he doesn't care much about role-model material."

"He still insists he was high and over-worked when he did that" Yuzu reminded him "Heck, I'm still not entirely sure he wasn't when he appointed me."

"Well, maybe he heard that we were dating and wanted for us to share a profession" Yuya suggested.

"That reason sucks even worse than being 'A defender of Sinnoh at its greatest point of need'" Yuzu pointed out "If anything he was more likely to do that because Serena was a gym leader."

"She wasn't at that point though" Yuya reminded her "Which is a good thing. I'm sure she would've killed me during a gym leader meeting without you there to mediate."

"I still don't get why she disliked you so much back then" Yuzu frowned thoughtfully.

Yuya shot her an unimpressed stare. "Are you telling me you don't remember how she and I met?"

* * *

 _It was a stupid idea, really, but Yuya was going with it anyway. If it went wrong, he could blame it all on a dare from Sawatari and Dennis._

 _He'd tried the other day, but he'd chickened out at the last minute. But today, he was confident and emboldened as he strode towards the front door of Yuzu's house._

 _Today, he was going to kiss Yuzu. Yuzu, who was his best friend and could kick his butt no problem. And he was going to kiss her._

 _He rang the doorbell and stood on the doorstep, trying to prevent any negative thoughts from creeping into his head. No, no chickening out. Today was the day._

 _"_ _Who is it?" a voice rang out as the door opened._

 _Yuya saw Yuzu's face and didn't give himself a chance to think. He just leant forward and kissed her right on the lips._

 _For a second, everything was perfect. A little awkward, but perfect._

 _And then Yuya was stumbling back, clutching his stinging cheek from the force of the slap he'd just received._

 _Well, that wasn't how he'd wanted things to go. Now what did he do? Play it off as a joke? That would probably get him slapped. Go with the whole dare thing? That would more than likely get him slapped too._

 _"_ _What the hell are you playing at, asshole?!"_

 _Yuya startled at the insult. Yuzu would never swear like that, even if she was upset. The voice, the more he thought about it, didn't even sound like Yuzu._

 _Glancing up, he was startled to see a girl with Yuzu's face, but accompanied with green eyes and darker coloured hair. Not to mention a death glare that could kill a Yamask twice._

 _"_ _You're not Yuzu" he realised._

 _The girl's face screwed up tighter. "What do you want with Yuzu, you creep?"_

 _"_ _Serena, is someone at the door?"_

 _Yuya was relieved to see Yuzu elbow her way past the strange girl to the front door, then staring down at Yuya in shock._

 _"_ _Yuya!" she gasped "What happened?"_

 _"_ _You know this creep?" the younger girl jumped in, not giving Yuya time to explain._

 _Yuzu looked at the girl with a look of outrage. "Serena, what did you do?"_

 _"_ _The creep kissed me out of nowhere!" the girl, Serena, protested, Yuya now feeling lower than dirt "And then he started asking about you. What is he some kind of stalker?"_

 _"_ _He kissed you?" Yuzu looked between the two of them with furrowed eyebrows "Yuya, what?"_

 _"_ _I thought she was you" Yuya groaned, trying to avoid Serena's glare aimed at him._

 _A look of comprehension fluttered across Yuzu's face, which worried Yuya. "Serena, can you step inside for a minute? I need to talk to Yuya, alone."_

 _Serena looked between the pair uneasily, before shooting one final glare at Yuya and heading back inside the house._

 _Yuya kept his head down as Yuzu stepped down from the door onto the same level as him. Great, now she knew what he'd been planning to do, the surprise was gone and she knew he's kissed someone who happened to look just like her._

 _"_ _So was that meant for me or Serena?" she asked._

 _'_ _ **You**_ _'_ _Yuya should've admitted, but his cowardice prevented him from doing so "Who was that?"_

 _"_ _Who, Serena?" Yuzu frowned, not happen at the re-direction "She's my sister."_

 _"_ _I didn't know you had a sister" Yuya wasn't happy either, looking up now, at the idea Yuzu had a sister she'd failed to mention for the last ten years._

 _"_ _She's my half-sister" Yuzu explained "She used to live in Blackthorn City but mum and her dad got into some trouble and she got sent to live with us. I haven't seen her in years. She's my little sister but she's pretty protective."_

 _"_ _I saw that" Yuya commented "Though I did just plant one on her like that. Not that I meant to!"_

 _"_ _So it was meant for me" a smirk spread across Yuzu's lips and Yuya's eyes shot groundwards again "Did you want to kiss me, Yuya?"_

 _Like a coward, Yuya said nothing._

 _He heard the sound of feet shuffling closer. "Do you want to try kissing the right sister this time?"_

 _Yuya stared up at her in wonder, expecting her to suddenly laugh or get angry at him. But she didn't. She just stared back expectantly._

 _Arceus, Yuya really did want to kiss her._

 _Before he could get there though…_

 _"_ _It's been a minute."_

 _And inch from their lips touching, Yuzu suddenly whipped her head around to look at her sister who'd appeared back in the doorway again, hitting Yuya in the face with a pigtail._

 _"_ _Serena, scam already!" Yuzu protested._

 _Serena just looked down at them with an unimpressed frown. "Was he trying to kiss you? I can beat him up if you like."_

 _"_ _Serena, go away!" Yuzu hissed, before obviously deciding to hell with it and all but crashing her face into Yuya's._

 _It was messy, in the middle of the street and Serena was making indignant noises the whole time, but Yuya was of the agreement it was the best first kiss of all time._

* * *

"I can't believe she was so huffy about that" Yuzu rolled her eyes "I mean, it was a mistake."

"I was forever tarnished in her eyes" Yuya groaned "Not exactly how I wanted to introduce myself to your extended family."

"Well, at least it wasn't as bad as how I met yours" Yuzu pointed out.

Yuya covered his mouth like he was trying not to laugh at the memories that dredged up.

* * *

 _"_ _And so I had my Venomoth use Silver Wind and the crowd was delighted. Of course, the great Shingo Sawatari never fails to impress the crowd but I have to say—"_

 _Yuzu nodded along as one of the other coordinators prattled on to her. She didn't know the guy and had no interest in getting to know him, so glanced around the room so see if there was anyone else she could talk to._

 _It was that time just before the contest started, where the main dressing room was filled with parents and friends congratulating the competitors who weren't warming up, so everyone was pretty wrapped up in their own world. She felt a flicker of hope when she saw a ginger boy on his own, but it died when he animatedly started up a one-sided conversation with a boy with pink hair who reminded Yuzu of Yuya._

 _She felt a stab of disappointment that Yuya wasn't here today. Her dad was too busy at the school to come and see her perform, but surely Yuya could've made it._

 _"_ _You know, I think I should go warm up" Yuzu finally told the boy who'd been ranting at her "I'm probably going to bring my A-Game to beat you, right?"_

 _"_ _Well of course!" the flattery worked as the boy let her leave "Warm up nice and good, but it certainly won't be enough to defeat the great Shingo Sawatari!"_

 _"_ _Right" Yuzu mumbled as she walked away "Wacko."_

 _She was so distracted by getting away that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. Before she got her bearings, she'd smashed into the back of someone, causing them to spill orange juice down their front._

 _"_ _Sorry" Yuzu immediately apologised as the extremely tall young man turned around, a livid look on his face._

 _"_ _Watch where you're going!" the boy snapped at her "Great, all over Kaito's shirt as well. What are you blind or something?!"_

 _Okay, Yuzu knew it had been her fault, and she'd apologised. So this guy had no right to talk to her like that._

 _"_ _Well maybe if you didn't wander around instead of staying by the drinks table and getting in people's way, your shirt would be fine" she argued back._

 _The boy leant down to look at in the eye with a glare of malice. "Are you looking for a fight, girly?"_

 _Never one to back down from a fight, Yuzu straightened her back and lifted her chin. "Maybe I am."_

 _The boy assessed her for a moment before scoffing and looking away. "Coordinators. All talk with no backing. You'd never survive a real Pokémon battle."_

 _Yuzu saw red and steam poured out of her ears. Apparently her foot also made contact with the boy's groin._

 _The boy froze for a second, unable to comprehend what had just happened, before his entire body crumpled into a seat with a groan of great pain._

 _"_ _I…I'm sorry?" Yuzu tried to mean it, but wasn't very successful._

 _"_ _Shun! What the hell!"_

 _Yuzu was startled as a very pretty girl about her age with very long purple hair stormed up to the pair, glaring at the young man like he'd just killed her Stuffle._

 _The young man, Shun obviously, just groaned in pain, hunched over in his seat._

 _The young woman now turned to Yuzu. "What did you do to him?"_

 _Yuzu winced at her outraged tone. "I may've kicked him in the nuts."_

 _Surprisingly, the young woman didn't blow up at her, just stared back coolly. "Did he deserve it?"_

 _"_ _No" Shun groaned as a reply._

 _"_ _Kinda" Yuzu admitted, which was a fair understatement._

 _The young woman rolled her eyes again, now turning on Shun. "What did you say to her?"_

 _"_ _Nothing!" Shun protested "She ran into_ _ **me**_ _!"_

 _"_ _Did she apologise?"_

 _"…"_

 _The young woman groaned like she'd seen this a thousand times before, before calling over Yuzu's shoulder. "Hey, Yuto! Can I have some help over here? I'm up first and Shun needs some ice."_

 _"_ _What did he do this time?" a voice called back into reply._

 _Yuzu turned around, trying to spot whoever had called back. She was surprised at who she saw._

 _"_ _Yuya?" she startled upon seeing the boy in question walk across the room with a dark-haired boy with a heavy resemblance to him as well as a heavy goth aesthetic._

 _"_ _Yuzu?" Yuya also appeared surprised._

 _"_ _You know each other?" the second boy asked._

 _"_ _Yeah, this is Yuzu, remember" Yuya told him and the boy's eyes lit up with recognition._

 _"_ _Oh, yeah, Yuzu" he held his hand out for her to shake, his eyes warm and smiling "I'm Yuto, nice to meet you."_

 _Yuto. Yuto. Yuzu could've sworn she'd heard that name before._

 _"_ _You too" she greeted him, accepting the hand shake._

 _"_ _Oh,_ _ **you're**_ _Yuzu" the young woman suddenly cut in "I had no idea you'd be competing today. I'm Ruri Kurosaki – I'm up first."_

 _"_ _I think I've seen you around" Yuzu recalled "Were you are the Floaroma contest?"_

 _"_ _I was" Ruri smiled "I didn't make it to the second round though. Sorry if Shun's being a jerk to you – he gets all wound up when I'm about to compete – more than I do anyway."_

 _"_ _Did Shun pick a fight again?" Yuto frowned._

 _"_ _With Yuzu" Ruri nodded._

 _Yuto groaned with exasperation. "First Kaito, then Reiji Akaba, now Yuzu. You need to stop picking fights with people who can kill you."_

 _Shun just made some garbled noises, his head in his hands and still hunched over._

 _"_ _I'll sort him out" Yuto sighed, helping Shun out of his chair "You go warm up Ruri. You've only got a few minutes."_

 _"_ _I'll see you up on the stage" Ruri promised Yuzu before heading off in the direction of one of the warmup rooms._

 _Yuto just waved behind them as he and Shun walked (or limped in Shun's case) in the direction of the ice machine._

 _"_ _Well, I guess you just met the family" Yuya joked._

 _"_ _Family?" Yuzu frowned "And what are you even doing here, I didn't know you were competing."_

 _"_ _I wasn't until a few minutes ago – someone dropped out and I got his spot" Yuya explained "I was totally here to cheer you on until that point."_

 _"_ _Great, now I'm definitely going to lose" Yuzu groaned "Who was that Yuto guy? I swear I've heard you mention him before."_

 _"_ _Yuto? He's my cousin" Yuya explained and Yuzu couldn't believe she hadn't remembered that._

 _"_ _Oh, him!" she recalled "The one whose parents died, right?" She suddenly realised what she'd said a felt a bit guilty. "Sorry, that was a bit insensitive."_

 _"_ _Hey, don't worry, everyone says that" Yuya shrugged "Those were Shun and Ruri. Their parents were in the mine on the day of the accident too, and Dr Faker took them all in. They're all like siblings, so they're all like my cousins."_

 _"_ _And I just kicked one of them in the nuts" Yuzu realised "Great first impression, huh?"_

 _"_ _On the other hand, I think Ruri and Yuto respect you more than ever" Yuya pointed out "Anyone whose willing to kick Shun's ass when he's being a prat earns a whole load of points in their book. Mine too come to think of it."_

 _Yuzu felt a little better with that knowledge._

* * *

"I swear to Arceus, Ray and Zarc's in-law introductions probably went better" Yuzu groaned.

"Ruri and Yuto still think you're awesome though" Yuya pointed out.

"Shun still won't look me in the eye" Yuzu admitted "I don't think he's ever walk right since then."

Yuya's head hit the table as he dissolved into laughter.

"It's not funny!" Yuzu protested.

"It kinda is" Yuya laughed, though he sounded like he was trying to stop, and Yuzu somewhat agreed with him.

"When we get married, I sweat his wedding's gifts going to be a jock strap or something" she sighed "He's never going to let me forget that."

There was a twinkle of mischief in Yuya's eye when he looked up. "Already planning our wedding, huh?"

"What? No!" Yuzu quickly backpedalled "It's just that Yugo and Rin are getting married and weddings on the brain at the moment, that's all."

"Right" Yuya didn't appear convinced at all "Well, I'm pretty sure Yugo and Rin wouldn't settle for a double wedding. And besides, you haven't proposed to me yet. You have to woo me off my feet before I'm agreeing to marry you."

Yuzu frowned. "Should _you_ be the one proposing to me?"

"Hey, I was the one who asked you out" Yuya pointed out "It's time for _you_ to ask _me_ something."

"Don't remind me of that" Yuzu groaned "That was embarrassing."

"You loved it" Yuya grinned.

He was absolutely right, but Yuzu wasn't going to admit that.

* * *

 _Yuzu was suspicious the moment they arrived. It was midday on a Sunday – Amity Park should be full of trainers. However, instead it was empty, she and Yuya had been allowed to enter their park with their Togekiss and Jang-mo despite neither being designated park Pokémon and the lady at the front desk had winked at her as they entered._

 _Something was up and either Team Galactic or Yuya was to blame. Her dad wasn't influential enough anymore to have sway over the park. An evil organisation or gym leader though…_

 _"_ _What did you do?" she asked immediately._

 _"_ _Nothing" Yuya's face was as innocent as an angel's._

 _"_ _You've done something" she frowned at him "Tell me what or I'm leaving."_

 _Yuya sighed dramatically. "Okay boys! She's guessed it! Unveil the surprise!"_

 _To her astonishment, a flock of Starly rose into the air above the island they were standing on, heaving a giant banner that required the help of two Staraptors to help lift. When it hung in the air above the park, its message was obvious._

 _YUZU, WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?_

 _It was big enough and high enough that half the city could see it._

 _And it top it off, a group of Chingling started singing her favourite song._

 _It was like something from a cheesy rom-com._

 _"_ _Couldn't you have asked in a less…public? Chessy? Utterly over-the-top way?" she frowned._

 _"_ _It wouldn't be me asking if I didn't" Yuya pointed out, which was true._

 _Her Togekiss was giggling. It was the ultimate indignation._

 _"_ _Fine."_

 _Yuya, despite all his planning, appeared startled at her response. "Sorry?"_

 _"_ _Well, since you seem to have scared all the other patrons off, we may as well make use of our time here" Yuzu told him._

 _Yuya was still staring at her blankly. The Chingling were faltering mid-song and the Starly flock appeared to be rapidly losing altitude._

 _Yuzu sighed impatiently. "Yuya, I will consider this our first official date if that banner disappears right now."_

 _If Yuya's Garchomp had incinerated that banner a little too quickly, Yuzu wasn't protesting. It may have been a violating of Amity Park's littering and Pokémon laws and a total waste of good material, but at least it meant that infernal thing could never raise its head again._

 _Honestly, was asking for a date over a cup of coffee that difficult for Yuya?_

* * *

"It was too cheesy" Yuzu protested.

"It was perfect" Yuya corrected her.

"It was all over social media before we even go out of the park" Yuzu reminded him "There were polls guessing who I was dating. I had to hold a press conference. On. My. Birthday."

"It was perfect" Yuya repeated.

Silence reigned over them for a few moments as Yuzu shot Yuya a pointed look.

"Though seriously, do you want to marry me?" Yuya asked, sounding a little anxious.

"Well duh" Yuzu scoffed "I can't think of any reasons why I wouldn't want to."

Yuya appeared to be relieved. "Oh that's good. You better get serious on the proposal plans then."

Yuzu shot him a small smile. "Duly noted."

They began peacefully drinking from their coffee mugs, their beverages starting to go cold by this point, enjoying the silence and each other company, neither of them feeling awkward.

"Just to let you know" Yuya told her "Those pictures of the banner are going in the wedding video."

"Yuya, if a single banner picture end up in that video, I'm going to tear the projector apart with my bare hands" Yuzu told him with a glare "And then I'll use them to tear you apart."

Yuya's eyes were full of mirth as he responded. "Whatever you say, my queen."

Content, both returned to their mugs again.

"Though the picture of you with the Girafferig though—"

"Yuya, no."


End file.
